Introduction to the study of history

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INTRODUCTION

STUDY OF HISTORY

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INTRODUCTION

TO THE

STUDY OF HISTORY

CH.^V. LANGLOIS 6? CH. SEIGNOBOS

OF THE SORBONNE

Translated by G. G. BERRY
With a Preface by F. YORK POWELL

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

Xo iwpi&ce lost copy

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

r

X

TO THE READER

It is a pleasure to recommend this useful and well-
written little book to English readers. It will both
interest and help. There are, for instance, a few
pages devoted to the question of evidence that will
be an aid to every one desirous of getting at the
truth respecting any series of facts, as well as to the
student of history. No one can read it without find-
ing out that to the historian history is not merely a
pretty but rather difficult branch of literature, and
that a history book is not necessarily good if it
appears to the literary critic ' readable and interest-
ing,' nor bad because it seems to him ' hard or heavy
reading.' The literary critic, in fact, is beginning to
find out that he reads a history as he might read a
treatise on mathematics or linguistics, at his peril,
and that he is no judge of its value or lack of value.
Only the expert can judge that. It will probably
surprise some people to find that in the opinion of
our authors (who agree with Mr. Morse Stephens
and with the majority of scholars here) the formation
and expression of ethical judgments, the approval
or condemnation of Caius Julius Caesar, or of Caesar
Borgia, is not a thing within the historian's province.
His business is to find out what can be known about
the characters and situations with which he is en-

To the Reader

gaged, to put what he can ascertain before his readers
in a clear form, and lastly to consider and attempt to
ascertain what scientific use can be made of these
facts he has ascertained. Ethic on its didactic side
is outside his business altogether. In fact MM.
Langlois and Seignobos write for those " who propose
to deal with documents [especially written docu-
ments] with a view to preparing or accomplishing
historic work in a scientific way." They have the
temerity to view history as a scientific pursuit, and
they are endeavouring to explain to the student who
intends to pursue this branch of anthropologic science
the best and safest methods of observation open to
him, hence they modestly term their little book " an
essay on the method of historic sciences." They are
bold enough to look forward to a day, as not far
distant, when a sensible or honest man will no more
dare to write history unscientifically than he would
to-day be willing to waste his time and that of
others on observing the heavens unscientifically,
and registering as trustworthy his unchecked and
untimed observations.

Whether we like it or not, history has got to be
scientifically studied, and it is not a question of style
but of accuracy, of fulness of observation, and cor-
rectness of reasoning, that is before the student.
Huxley and Darwin and Clifford have shown that
a book may be good science and yet good reading.
Truth has not always been found repulsive although
she was not bedizened with rhetorical adornments;
indeed, the very pursuit of her has long been recog-
nised as arduous but extremely fascinating. Toute

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To the Reader

trouvaille, as our authors aptly remark, procure une
jouissance.

It will be a positive gain to have the road cleared of
a mass of rubbish, that has hindered the advance of
knowledge. History must be worked at in a scientific
spirit, as biology or chemistry is worked at. As M.
Seignobos says, " On ne s'arrete plus guere aujourd'hui
a discuter, sous sa forme theologique la th^orie de la
Providence dans l'Histoire. Mais la tendence a expli-
quer les faits historiques par les causes transcendantes
persiste dans des theories plus modernes ou la meta-
physique se deguise sous des formes scientifiques."
We should certainly get rid in time of those curious
Hegelianisms " under which in lay disguise lurks the
old theologic theory of final causes " ; or the pseudo-
patriotic supposition of the " historic mission (Beruf)
attributed to certain people or persons." The study
of historic facts does not even make for the popular
newspaper theory of the continuous and necessary
progress of humanity, it shows only "partial and
intermittent advances, and gives us no reason to
attribute them to a permanent cause inherent in
collective humanity rather than to a series of local
accidents." But the historian's path is still like that
of Bunyan's hero, bordered by pitfalls and haunted
by hobgoblins, though certain of his giant adversaries
are crippled and one or two slain. He has also his
own faults to master, or at least to check, as MM.
Langlois and Seignobos not infrequently hint, e.g.
" Nearly all beginners have a .vexatious tendency to
go off into superfluous digressions, heaping up re-
flexion and information that have no bearing on the

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To the Reader

main subject. They will recognise, if they think over
it, that the causes of this leaning are bad taste, a kind
of naive vanity, sometimes a disordered mind." Again :
" The faults of historic works intended for the general
public . . . are the results of the insufficient prepara-
tion of the bad literary training of the popularisers."
What an admirable criticism there is too of that
peculiarly German shortcoming (one not, however,
unknown elsewhere), which results in men "whose
learning is ample, whose monographs destined for
scholars are highly praiseworthy, showing themselves
capable, when they write for the public, of sinning
heavily against scientific methods," so that, in their
determination to stir their public, " they who are so
scrupulous and particular when it is a question of
dealing with minutiae, abandon themselves like the
mass of mankind to their natural inclinations when
they come to set forth general questions. They take
sides, they blame, they praise, they colour, they em-
bellish, they allow themselves to take account of
personal, patriotic, ethical, or metaphysical considera-
tions. Above all, they apply themselves with what
talent has fallen to their lot to the task of creating
a work of art, and, so applying themselves, those of
them who lack talent become ridiculous, and the
talent of those who possess it is spoilt by their
anxiety for effect."

On the other hand, while the student is rejoicing
at the smart raps bestowed upon the Teutonic offender,
he is warned against the error of thinking that " pro-
vided he can make himself understood, the historian
has the right to use a faulty, low, careless, or clogged

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To the Reader

style. . . . Seeing the extreme complexity of the
phenomena he must endeavour to describe, he has
not the privilege of writing badly. But he ought
always to write well, and not to bedizen his prose
with extra finery once a week."

Of course much that is said in this book has been
said before, but I do not know any book wherein the
student of history will find such an organised collec-
tion of practical and helpful instructions. There are
several points on which one is unable to find one-
self in agreement with MM. Langlois and Seignobos,
but these occur mainly where they are dealing with
theory ; as far as practical work goes, one finds one-
self in almost perfect concurrence with them. That
they know little of the way in which history is taught
and studied in England or Canada or the United
States is not at all an hindrance to the use of their
book. The student may enjoy the pleasure of making
his own examples out of English books to the rules
they lay down. He may compare their cautions against
false reasoning and instances of fallacy with those set
forth in that excellent and concise essay of Bentham's,
which is apparently unknown to them. He will
not fail to see that we in England have much to
learn in this subject of history from the French.
The French archives are not so fine as ours, but
they take care to preserve their local and pro-
vincial documents, as well as their national ,and
central records ; they give their archivists a regular
training, they calendar and make accessible all
that time and fate have spared of pre-revolutionary
documents. We have not got farther than the pro-

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To the Reader

vision of a fine central Record Office furnished with
very inadequate means for calendaring the masses of
documents already stored and monthly accumulating
there, though we have lately set up at Oxford, Cam-
bridge, and London the regular courses of palaeo-
graphy, diplomatic, and bibliography, that constitute
the preliminary training of the archivist or historical
researcher. We want more: we must have county
archives, kept by trained archivists. We must have
more trained archivists at the disposal of the Deputy
Keeper of the Rolls, we must have such means as
the Biblioteque de I'Jficole des Chartes for full reports
of special and minute investigations and discoveries,
for hand-lists and the like, before we can be con-
sidered as doing as much for history as the heavily
taxed French nation does cheerfully, and with a sound
confidence that the money it spends wisely in science
is in the truest sense money saved.

For those interested in the teaching of history,
this book is one of the most suggestive helps that
has yet appeared; With a blackboard, a text (such
as are now cheap), or a text-book (such as Stubbs
or Prothero or Gardiner), an atlas, and access to a
decent public library and an average local museum,
the teacher who has mastered its intent should never
be at a loss for an interesting catechetical lecture
or exposition to a class, whether of adults or of
younger folk.

Not the least practical part of the work of MM.
Langlois and Seignobos has been the consideration
they have given to such every-day issues as the
teacher is constantly called upon to face. History

To the Reader

cannot safely be neglected in schools, though it is by
no means necessary that the Universities should turn
out large bodies of trained historians. It is possible
indeed that the serious study of history might gain
were there fewer external inducements at the Univer-
sities to lead to the popularity of the History Schools.
But in this very popularity there lies a great op-
portunity for concerted efforts, not only to better
the processes of study, but also to clear off the
vast arrears of classification and examination of the
erroneous historic material at our disposition in this
country.

The historian has been (as our authors hint) too
much the ally of the politician ; he has used his
knowledge as material for preaching democracy in
the United States, absolutism in Prussia, Orleanist
opposition in France, and so on (English readers will
easily recall examples from their own countrymen's
work) : in the century to come he will have to ally
himself with the students of physical science, with
whose methods his own have so much in common.
It is not patriotism, nor religion, nor art, but the
attainment of truth that is and must be the historian's
single aim.

But it is also to be borne in mind that history is
an excellent instrument of culture, for, as. our authors
point out, " the practice and method of historic in-
vestigation is a pursuit extremely healthful for the
mind, freeing it from the disease of ^credulity," and
fortifying it in other ways as a discipline, though
precisely how to best use history for this purpose is
still in some ways uncertain, and after all it is a

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To the Reader

matter which concerns Psedagogic and Ethic more
than the student of history, though it is plain that
MM. Langlois and Seignobos have not neglected to
consider it.

One can hardly help thinking, too, that, in schools
and places where the young are trained, something
might be gained by treating such books as Plutarch's
Lives not as history (for which they were never in-
tended) but as text-books of ethic, as examples of
conduct, public or private. The historian very pro-
perly furnishes the ethical student with material,
though it is not right to reckon the ethical student's
judgment upon the historian's facts as history in any
sense. It is not an historian's question, for instance,
whether Napoleon was right or wrong in his conduct
at Jaffa, or Nelson in his behaviour at Naples ; that
is a matter for the student of ethic or the religious
dogmatist to decide : all that the historian has to do
is to get what conclusion he can out of the conflict of
evidence, and to decide whether Napoleon or Nelson
actually did that of which their enemies accused them,
or, if he cannot arrive at fact, to state probability,
and the reasons that incline him to lean to the
affirmative or negative.

As to the possibility of a " philosophy of history,"
a real one, not the mockeries that have long been
discredited by scientific students, the reader will find
some pregnant remarks here in the epilogue and the
chapters that precede it. There is an absence of un-
reasonable optimism in our authors' views. "It is
probable that hereditary differences have contributed
to determine events ; so that in part historic evolution

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To the Reader

is produced by physiological and anthropologic causes.
But history furnishes no trustworthy process by which
it may be possible to determine the action of those
hereditary differences between man and man," i.e.
she starts with races 'endowed' each with peculi-
arities that make them ' disposed to act ' somewhat
differently under similar pressure. " History is only
able to grasp the conditions of their existence." And
what M. Seignobos calls the final problem — Is evolu-
tion 'produced merely by changed conditions ? — must
according to him remain insoluble by the legitimate
processes of history. The student may accept or
reject this view as his notions of evidence prompt
him to do. M. Seignobos has at all events laid down
a basis for discussion in sufficiently clear terms.

As to the composition of the joint Work we are
told that M. Seignobos has been especially con-
cerned with the chapters that touch theory, and M.
Langlois with those that deal with practice. Both
authors have already proved their competence — M.
Seignobos' labours on Modern History have been
widely appreciated, while M. Langlois' "Hand-book
of Historic Bibliography " is already a standard text-
book, and bids fair to remain so. We are grateful to
both of them for the pains they have taken to be
clear and definite, and for their determination to
shirk none of the difficulties that have met them.
They have produced a hand-book that students will
use and value in proportion to their use of it, a book
that will save much muddle of thought and much
loss of time, a book written in the right spirit to
inspire its readers. We are not bound to agree with

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To the Reader

all M. Seignobos' dogmas, and can hardly accept, for
instance, M. Langlois' apology for the brutal methods
of controversy that are an evil legacy from the theo-
logian and the grammarian, and are apt to darken
truth and to cripple the powers of those who engage
in them. For though it is possible that the secondary
effect of these barbarous scuffles may sometimes have
been salutary in deterring impostors from 'taking
up ' history, I am not aware of any positive examples
to justify this opinion. There is this, however, to be
said, that fully conscious of their own fallibility, M.
Langlois and his excellent collaborator have supplied
in their canons of criticism and maxims the best
corrections of any mistakes into which they may
have fallen by the way. Is not the House of Fame,
as the poet tells us, a more wonderful and quaintly
wrought habitation than Domus Dedali itself ? And
may not honest historians be pardoned if they are
sometimes confused for a brief moment by the never-
ending noise and marvellous motion of that deceptive
mint and treasury, and fatigued by the continual
trial and examination of the material that issues
therefrom? The student will, at least, learn from
MM. Langlois and Seignobos to have no mercy on his
own shortcomings, to spare no pains, to grudge no
expenditure of time or energy in the investigation of
a carefully chosen and important historical problem,
to aim at doing the bit of work in hand so thoroughly
that it will not need to be done again.

It would be unjust to omit here to mention Dr.
Bernheim's "Exposition of Historic Method," or
Lekrbuch der historischen Methode, so justly praised

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To the Reader

and used by our authors, but I believe that as an
introduction to the subject, intended for the use of
English or North American students, this little volume
will be found the handier and more practical work.
Of its value to English workers I can speak from
experience, and I know many teachers to whom it
will be welcome in its present form.

It would have been easy to * adapt ' this book by
altering its examples, by modifying its excellent plan,
by cutting here and carving there to the supposed
convenience of an imaginary public, but the better
part has been chosen of giving English readers this
manual precisely as it appeared in French. And
surely one would rather read what M. Langlois, an
experienced teacher and a tried scholar, thought on a
moot point, than be presented with the views of some
English ' adaptor ' who had read his book, as to what
he would have said had he been an Englishman
lecturing to English students. That the present
translator has taken much pains to faithfully report
his authors, I know (though I have not compared
English and French throughout every page), so that
I can commend his honest work to the reader as I
have already commended the excellent matter that
he has been concerned in preparing for a wider public
than the French original could command.

F. YORK POWELL.
Oriel College, Oxford, July 1898.

xv

CONTENTS

PAGE

To the Reader v

AUTHORS1 PREFACE

What this work is not meant to be — Works on the Philosophy

of History ....-.;.... I

What it is meant to be 2

Existing works on Historical Methods — JDroysen, Freeman,

Daunou, &c. . -. . , . . . . . 3

Reasons why the study of method is useful .... 7
Bernheim's Lehrbuch-^-ln what way it leaves room for another

book 10

Need of warning to students • . .11

The general public . . . . .. . . - . .13

Distribution of the work between the two authors . . .13

BOOK I

PRELIMINARY STUDIES
CHAPTER I

THE SEARCH FOR DOCUMENTS

Documents : their nature, use, necessity 17

Utility of Heuristic, or the art of discovering documents . 18
The difficulties of Heuristic — Ancient times— H. H. Bancroft

— State of things at the Renaissance 19

xvii b

Contents

PAOE

Growth of libraries — Collectors — Effects of revolutionary
confiscation in promoting the concentration and the
accessibility of documents 20

Possible future progress — Need for the cataloguing and index-
ing of documents . . . . . . .27

Students and bibliographical knowledge — Effect of present

conditions in deterring men from historical work . . 32

The remedies — Official cataloguing of libraries — Activity of

learned societies — of governments . . . 34

Different kinds of bibliographical works needed by students . 37

Different degrees of difficulty of Heuristic in different parts of
History— to be kept in view when choosing a subject of
research 38

CHAPTER II

AUXILIARY SCIENCES

Documents are raw material, and need a preliminary elabora-
tion . . . . 42

Obsolete views on the historian's apprenticeship — Mably,

Daunou 43

Commonplace and exaggeration on this subject — Freeman —

Various futilities 45

The scientific conception of the historian's apprenticeship —

Palaeography — Epigraphy — Philology — Diplomatic . . 48

History of Literature — Archaeology . . . . ; 5 1

Criticism of phrase " auxiliary sciences " — The subjects not all

sciences— None of them auxiliary to the whole of History . 52

This scientific conception is of recent growth — The Ecole des
Chartes — Modern manuals of Palaeography, Epigraphy,
&c. — List of the chief of them 55

XVlll

Contents
BOOK II

ANALYTICAL OPERATIONS
CHAPTER I

GENERAL CONDITIONS OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE

TA.OK

Direct and indirect knowledge of facts 63

History not a science of direct observation— Its data obtained

by chains of reasoning 64

Twofold division of Historical Criticism: External, investigat-
ing the transmission and origin of documents and the
statements in them ; Internal, dealing with the content
of the statements and their probability .... 66

Complexity of Historical Criticism 67

Necessity of Criticism — The human mind naturally uncritical 6S

SECTION I.— EXTERNAL CRITICISM
CHAPTER II

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Errors in the reproduction of documents : their frequency
under the most favourable conditions — Mistakes of
copyists— " Sound" and "corrupt " texts . . . 71

Necessity of emendation — The method subject to fixed rules 73

Methods of textual criticism : (a) original preserved ; (&)- a
single copy preserved, conjectural emendation ; (c) several
copies preserved, comparison of errors, families of manu-
scripts m 75

Different degrees of difficulty of textual criticism : its results
negative — The " emendation game " — What still remains
to be done 83

xix

Contents
CHAPTER III

CRITICAL INVESTIGATION OF AUTHORSHIP

PAG*

Natural tendency to accept indications of authorship —
Examples of false attributions — Necessity of verification
— Application of internal criticism . . . ' . .87

Interpolations and continuations — Evidence of style . . 92

Plagiarism and borrowings by authors from each other— The

filiation of statements — The investigation of sources . 93

Importance of investigations of authorship — The extreme of

distrust to be avoided — Criticism only a means to an end 98

CHAPTER IV

CRITICAL CLASSIFICATION OF SOURCES

Importance of classification — The first impulse wrong — The
note-book system not the best — Nor the ledger-system —
Nor the (< system" of trusting the memory . . .101

The system of slips the best — Its drawbacks — Means of
obviating them — The advantage of good "private librarian-
ship" 103

Methods of work vary according to the object aimed at — The
compiling of Regesta or of a Corpus — Classification by
time, place, species, and form 105

Chronological arrangement to be used when possible — Geogra-
phical arrangement best for inscriptions — When these
fail, alphabetical order of " incipit " — Logical order useful
for some special purposes — Not for a Corpus or for Regesta 107

CHAPTER V

CRITICAL SCHOLARSHIP AND SCHOLARS

Different opinions on the importance and dignity of external
criticism — It is justified by its necessity — But is only
preliminary to the higher part of historical work . . 1 1
XX

Contents

PAGE

Distinction between " historians " and " critical scholars " [Fr.
" trudits"]— Expediency, within limits, of the division of
labour in this respect — The exceptional skill acquired by
specialists — Difference of work the corollary of difference
of natural aptitudes 115

The natural aptitudes required for external criticism — Fond-
ness for the work, which is distasteful to the creative
genius — The puzzle-solving instinct — Accuracy and its
opposite — " Froude's Disease " — Patience, order, persever-
ance 121

The mental defects produced by devotion to external criticism
— Its paralysing effect on the over-scrupulous — Hyper-
criticism — Dilettantism 128

The " organisation of scientific labour " 135

The harshness of judgment attributed to scholars, not always
rightly — Much of it a proper jealousy for historic truth —
Bad work nowadays soon detected 136

SECTION II.— INTERNAL CRITICISM
CHAPTER VI

INTERPRETATIVE CRITICISM; (HERMENEUTIc)

Internal criticism deals with the mental operations which
begin with the observation of a fact and end with the
writing of words in a document — It is divided into two
stages : the first concerned with what the author meant,
the second with the value of his statements . . .141

Necessity of separating the two operations— Danger of reading

opinions into a text 143

The analysis of documents — The method of slips — Complete-
ness necessary 145

Necessity of linguistic study — General knowledge of a language
not enough — Particular variety of a language as used at a
given time, in' a given country, by a given author — The
rule of context 146

Different degrees of difficulty in interpretation . . . 149

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Contents

PAOK

Oblique senses : allegory, metaphor, &c. — How to detect them
— Former tendency to find symbolism everywhere —
Modern tendency to find allusion everywhere . . 15 1

Results of interpretation — Subjective inquiries . . . 153

CHAPTER VII

THE NEGATIVE INTERNAL CRITICISM OP THE GOOD FAITH
AND ACCURACY OF AUTHORS

Natural tendency to trust documents— Criticism originally due
to contradictions — The rule of methodical doubt— Defec-
tive modes of criticism 155

Documents to be analysed, and the irreducible elements

criticised separately 159

The "accent of sincerity" — No trust to be placed in impres-
sions produced by the form of statements . . .161

Criticism examines the conditions affecting ( 1 ) the composition
of the document as a whole ; (2) the making of each par-
ticular statement — In both cases using a previously made
list of possible reasons for distrust or confidence . .162

Reasons for doubting good faith: (1) the author's interest;
(2) the force of circumstances, official reports; (3) sym-
pathy and antipathy ; (4) vanity; (5) deference to public
opinion ; (6) literary distortion 166

Reasons for doubting accuracy : (1 ) the author a bad observer,
hallucinations, illusions, prejudices ; (2) the author not
well situated for observing ; (3) negligence and indiffer-
ence ; (4) fact not of nature to be directly observed . .172

Cases where the author is not the original observer of the
fact — Tradition, written and oral — Legend — Anecdotes —
Anonymous statements 177

Special reasons without which anonymous statements are not
to be accepted: (1) falsehood improbable because (a) the
fact is opposed to interest or vanity of author, (J) the fact
was generally known, (c) the fact was indifferent to the
author;; (2) error improbable because the fact was too big
to mistake ; (3) the fact seemed improbable or unintel-
ligible to the author . . . . . . . .185

How critical operations are shortened in practice . . .189

xxii

Contents
CHAPTER VIII

THE DETERMINATION OF PARTICULAR PACTS

PAGE

The conceptions of authors, whether well or ill founded, are
the subject-matter of certain studies — They necessarily
contain elements of truth, which, under certain restric-
tions, may sometimes be inferred from them . . . 191

The statements of authors, taken singly, do not rise above
probability — The only sure results of criticism are negative
— To establish facts it is necessary to compare different
statements 194

Contradictions between statements, real and apparent . . 198

Agreement of statements — Necessity of proving them to be
independent — Perfect agreement not so conclusive as
occasional coincidence — Cases where different observa-
tions of the same fact are not independent — General facts
the easiest to prove . 199

Different facts, each imperfectly proved, corroborate each

other when they harmonise 204

Disagreement between documents and other sources of know-
ledge—Improbable statements — Miracles — When science
and history conflict, history should give way . . . 205

BOOK III

SYNTHETIC OPERATIONS
CHAPTER I

GENERAL CONDITIONS OF HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTION

The materials of Historical Construction are isolated facts,
of very different kinds, of very different degrees of
generality, each belonging to a? definite time and place,
of different degrees of certainty 211

Subjectivity of History . . . . . . . 214

xxiii

Contents

The facts learnt from documents relate to (i) living beings
and material objects ; (2) actions, individual and collec-
tive ; (3) motives and conceptions 217

The facts of the past must be imagined on the model of those
of the present — Danger of error especially in regard to
mental facts 219

Some of the conditions of human life are permanent — The
study of these provides a framework into which details
taken from documents are to be fitted — For this purpose
systematic lists of questions are to be used, drawn up
beforehand, and relating to the universal conditions of life 224

Outline of Historical Construction — The division of labour —
Historians must use the works of their colleagues and
predecessors, but not without critical precautions . . 228

CHAPTER II

THE GROUPING OF FACTS

Historical facts may be classified and arranged either accord-
ing to their time and place, or according to their nature —
Scheme for the logical classification of general historical
facts 232

The selection of facts for treatment — The history of civilisation

and " battle-history " — Both needed 236

The determination of groups of men — Precautions to be

observed — The notion of " race " 238

The study of institutions — Danger of being misled by meta-
phors—The questions which should be asked . . .241

Evolutions : operations involved in the study of them — The
place of particular facts (events) in evolution — Important
and unimportant facts 244

Periods — How they should be defined . . . . . 249

CHAPTER III

CONSTRUCTIVE REASONING

Incompleteness of the facts yielded by documents — Cautions

to be observed in filling up the gaps by reasoning . . 252
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Contents

PAGE

The argument from silence — When admissible . . . 254
Positive reasoning based on documents — The general principles
employed must enter into details, and the particular
facts to which they are applied must not be taken in
isolation 256

CHAPTER IV

THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENERAL FORMULAE

History, like every science, needs formulae by which the facts

acquired may be condensed into manageable form . . 262

Descriptive formulae — Should retain characteristic features —

Should be as concrete as possible 264

Formulae describing general facts— How constructed — Con-
ventional forms and realities — Mode of formulating an
evolution 266

Formulae describing unique facts — Principle of choice —
"Character" of persons — Precautions in formulating
them — Formulae describing events 270

Quantitative formulae — Operations by which they may be
obtained : measurement, enumeration, valuation, sampling,
generalisation — Precautions to be observed in generalising 274

Formulae expressing relations — General conclusions — Estima-
tion of the extent and value of the knowledge acquired —
Imperfection of data not to be forgotten in construction 279

Groups and their classification 282

The "solidarity" of social phenomena — Necessity of studying
causes — Metaphysical hypothesis — Providence — Concep-
tion of events as "rational" — The Hegelian "ideas"—
The historical " mission "— The theory of the general
progress of humanity 285

The conception of society as an organism — The comparative
method — Statistics — Causes cannot be investigated
directly, as in other sciences — Causation as exhibited in
the sequence of particular events 288

The study of the causes of social evolution must look beyond
abstractions to the concrete, acting and thinking men —
The place of hereditary characteristics in determining

evolution 292

XXV

Contents
CHAPTER V

EXPOSITION

PAOB

Former conceptions of history-writing — The ancient and
mediaeval ideal — The "history of civilisation" — The
modern historical " manual " — The romantic ideal at the
beginning of the century — History regarded as a branch
of literature up to 1850 296

The modern scientific ideal — Monographs — Right choice of
subject — References — Chronological order — Unambiguous
titles — Economy of erudition ...... 303

General works — A. meant for students and specialists-VWorks
of reference or "repertories" and scientific manuals of
special branches of history — Their form and style —
Collaboration in their production — Scientific general
histories 307

B. Works intended for the public — The best kind of populari-
sation— The inferior kind — Specialists who lower their
standard when they write for the public— The literary
style suitable for history 311

CONCLUSION

Summary description of the methods of history— The future

of history 316

The utility of history — Not directly applicable to present con-
ditions— Affords an explanation of the present — Helps
(and is helped by) the social sciences — A means of intel-
lectual culture 319

APPENDIX I

THE SECONDARY TEACHING OF HISTORY IN FRANCE

Late introduction of history as a subject of secondary instruc-
tion— Defective methods employed up to the end of the

Second Empire 325

xxvi

Contents

The reform movement — Questions involved relating to general
organisation — Choice of subjects — Order of teaching-
Methods of instruction — These questions to be answered
in the way that will make history most useful as a means
of social culture 328

Material aids — Engravings — Books — Methods of teaching . 332

APPENDIX II

THE HIGHER TEACHING OF HISTORY IN PRANCE

The different institutions — The College de France — The
Faculties of Letters — The Ecole Normale— The Ecole des
Chartes — The Ecole pratique des hautes Etudes . . 335

Reform of the Faculties — Preparation for degrees — The
Examination question — Principles on which it is to be
solved — The Dipldme d'itudes supirieures .... 340

Influence of the movement on the other institutions — Co-
operation of the institutions 345

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES . . . . , .347

XXV11

AUTHORS' PREFACE

The title of this work is clear. However, it is
necessary to state succinctly both what our inten-
tion has, and what it has not been ; for under this
same title, " Introduction to the Study of History,"
very different books have already been published.

It has not been our intention to give, as Mr.
W. B. Boyce 1 has done, a summary of universal
history for the use of beginners and readers of
scanty leisure.

Nor has it been our intention to add a new item
to the abundant literature of what is ordinarily called
the " Philosophy of History." Thinkers, for the most
part not professed historians, have made history the
subject of their meditations ; they have sought for
its " analogies " and its " laws." Some have supposed
themselves to have discovered " the laws which have
governed the development of humanity," and thus
to have "raised history to the rank of a positive
science." 2 These vast abstract constructions inspire
with an invincible a priori mistrust, not the general
public only, but superior minds as well. Fustel de
Coulanges, as his latest biographer tells us, was severe

1 W. B, Boyce, "Introduction to the Study of History, Civil,
Ecclesiastical, and Literary," London, 1894, 8vo.

2 For example, P. J. B. Bachez, in his Introduction a la science de
Vhistoire, Paris, 1842, 2 vols, 8vo.

A

Authors' Preface

on the Philosophy of History ; these systems were as
repugnant to him as metaphysics to the positivists.
Rightly or wrongly (without doubt wrongly), the
Philosophy of History, not having been cultivated ex-
clusively by well-informed, cautious men of vigorous
and sound judgment, has fallen into disrepute. The
reader will be reassured — or disappointed, as the
case may be — to learn that this subject will find no
place in the present work.1

We propose to examine the conditions and the
methods, to indicate the character and the limits,
of historical knowledge. How do we ascertain, in
respect of the past, what part of it it is possible,
what part of it it is important, to know ? What is a
document ? How are documents to be treated with a
view to historical work ? What are historical facts ?
How are they to be grouped to make history ? Who-
ever occupies himself with history performs, more or
less unconsciously, complicated operations of criti-
cism and construction, of analysis and synthesis. But
beginners, and the majority of those who have never
reflected on the principles of historical methodology,

1 The history of the attempts which have been made to under-
stand and explain philosophically the history of humanity has been
undertaken, as is well known, by Robert Flint. Mr. Flint has
already given the history of the Philosophy of History in French-
speaking countries : "Historical Philosophy in France and French
Belgium and Switzerland," Edinburgh and London, 1893, 8vo. It is
the first volume of the expanded re-edition of his " History of the
Philosophy of History in Europe," published twenty-five years ago.
Compare the retrospective (or historical) part of the work of N.
Marselli, La scienza della storia, i., Torino, 1873.

The most important original work which has appeared in France
since the publication of the analytical reportory of R. Flint is that
of P. Lacombe, De Vkistoire conside're'e comme science, Paris, 1894,
8vo. Cf. Revue Critique, 1895, *• P- I32«

2

Authors' Preface

make use, in the performance of these operations,
of instinctive methods which, not being, in general,
rational methods, do not usually lead to scientific
truth. It is, therefore, useful to make known and
logically justify the theory of the truly rational
methods — a theory which is now settled in some
parts, though still incomplete in some points of
capital importance.

The present "Introduction to the Study of History"
is thus intended, not as a summary of ascertained facts
or a system of general ideas on universal history, but
as an essay on the method of the historical sciences.

We proceed to state the reasons why we have
thought such a work opportune, and to explain the
spirit in which we have undertaken to write it.

The books which treat of the methodology of the
historical sciences are scarcely less numerous, and
at the same time not in much better favour, than
the books on the Philosophy of History. Specialists
despise them. A widespread opinion is expressed
in the words attributed to a certain scholar : " You
wish to write a book on philology; you will do
much better to produce a book with some good
philology in it. When I am asked to define philo-
logy, I always answer that it is what I work at." 1
Again, in reference to J. G. Droysen's Precis of
the Science of History, a certain critic expressed an
opinion which was meant to be, and was, a common-
place : " Generally speaking, treatises of this kind

1 Bevue Critique d'histoire et de UtUwturc, 1892, i. p. 164.

3

Authors' Preface

are of necessity both obscure and useless : obscure,
because there is nothing more vague than their
object; useless, because it is possible to be an
historian without troubling oneself about the prin-
ciples of historical methodology which they claim
to exhibit." * The arguments used by these de-
spisers of methodology are strong enough in all
appearance. They reduce to the following. As
a matter of fact, there are men who manifestly
follow good methods, and are universally recognised
as scholars or historians of the first order, without
having ever studied the principles of method ; con-
versely, it does not appear that those who have
written on historical method from the logical point
of view have in consequence attained any marked
superiority as scholars or historians : some, indeed,
have been known for their incompetence or medio-
crity in these capacities. In this there is nothing
that need surprise us. Who would think of post-
poning original research in chemistry, mathematics,
the sciences proper, until he had studied the methods
employed in those sciences ? Historical criticism !
Yes, but the best way to learn it is to apply it;
practice teaches all that is wanted.2 Take, too, the

1 Revue Critique d'histoire et de UtUrature, 1888, ii. p. 295. Cf. Le
Moyen Age, x. (1897), p. 91 : "These books [treatises on historical
method] are seldom read by those to whom they might be useful,
amateurs who devote their leisure to historical research ; and as
to professed scholars, it is from their masters' lessons that they
have learnt to know and handle the tools of their trade, leaving
out of consideration the fact that the method of history is the
same as that of the other sciences of observation, the gist of which
can be stated in a few words.

2 In accordance with the principle that historical method can
only be taught by example, L. Mariani has given the humorous

4

Authors' Preface

extant works on historical method, even the most
recent of them, those of J. G. Droysen, E. A.
Freeman, A. Tardif, U. Chevalier, and others; the
utmost diligence will extract from them nothing in
the way of clear ideas beyond the most obvious and
commonplace truisms.1

We willingly recognise that this manner of think-
ing is not entirely wrong. The great majority of
works on the method of pursuing historical inves-
tigations and of writing history — what is called
Historic in Germany and England — are superficial,
insipid, unreadable, sometimes ridiculous.2 To begin

title Corso pratico di metodologia delta storia to a dissertation on a
detail in the history of Fermo. See the A rchivio delta Societa
romana di storia patria, xiii. {1890), p. 211.

1 See an account of Freeman's work, u The Methods of Historical
Study," in the Revue Critique, 1887, i. p. 376. This work, says the
critic, is empty and commonplace. We learn from it "that history
is not so easy a study as many fondly imagine, that it has points of
contact with all the sciences, and that the historian truly worthy
of the name ought to know everything; that historical certitude is
unattainable, and that, in order to make the nearest approach to
it, it is necessary to have constant recourse to the original sources ;
that it is necessary to know and use the best modern historians,
but never to take their word for gospel. That is all." -He con-
cludes : Freeman " without a doubt taught historical method far
better by example than he ever succeeded in doing by precept."

Compare Bouvard et Pecuchct, by G. Flaubert. Here we have two
simpletons who, among other projects, propose to write history.
In order to help them, one of their friends sends them (p. 156)
"rules of criticism taken from the Cours of Daunou," such as : "It
is no proof to appeal to rumour and common opinion ; the witnesses
cannot appear. Reject impossibilities : Pausanias was shown the
stone swallowed by Saturn. Keep in mind the skill of forgers, the
interest of apologists and calumniators." Daunou's work contains
a number of truisms quite as obvious, and still more comic than
the above.

2 Flint (ibid. p. 15) congratulates himself on not having to study
the literature of Historic, for "a very large portion of it is so trivial
and superficial that it can hardly ever have been of use even to persons

5

Authors' Preface

with, those prior to the nineteenth century, a full
analysis of which is given by P. C. F. Daunou in
the seventh volume of his Cours d'ttudes histo-
riqucs,1 are nearly all of them mere treatises on
rhetoric, in which the rhetoric is antiquated, and
the problems discussed are the oddest imaginable.2
Daunou makes merry over them, but he himself
has shown good sense and nothing more in his
monumental work, which at the present time seems
little better, and certainly not more useful, than the
earlier treatises.3 As to the modern ones, it is true

of the humblest capacity, and may certainly now be safely confined
to kindly oblivion." Nevertheless, Flint has given in his book a
summary list of the principal works of this kind published in
French-speaking countries from the earliest times. A more general
and complete account (though still a summary one) of the literature
of this subject in all countries is furnished by the Lehrbuch der
historischen Methode of E. Bernheim (Leipzig, 1894, 8vo), pp. 143
sqq. Flint (who was acquainted with several works unknown to
Bernheim) stops at 1893, Bernheim at 1894. Since 1889 the
Jahresberichte der Gesckichtswissenschaft have contained a periodical
account of recent works on historical methodology.

1 This seventh volume was published in 1844. But Daunou's
celebrated Cours was delivered at the College de France in the
years 1819-30.

2 The Italians of the Renaissance (Mylseus, Francesco Patrizzi,
and others), and after them the writers of the last two centuries,
ask what is the relation of history to dialectic and rhetoric ; to
how many laws the historical branch of literature is subject ;
whether it is right for the historian to relate treasons, acts of
cowardice, crimes, disorders ; whether history is entitled to use
any style other than the sublime ; and so on. The only books on
Historic, published before the nineteenth century, which give evi-
dence of any original effort to attack the real difficulties, are those
of Lenglet de Fresnoy (Me'thode pour etudier Vhistoire, Paris, 1713),
and of J. M. Chladenius (AUgemeinc Geschichtsioissenschaft, Leipzig,
1752). The work of Chladenius has been noticed by Bernheim
(ibid. p. 166).

3 He has not always shown even good sense, for, in the Cours
d'ttudes historiques (vii. p. 105), where he treats of a work, De

6

Authors' Preface

that not all have been able to escape the two dangers
to which works of this character are exposed — that
of being obscure on the one hand, or commonplace
on the other. J. G. Droysen's Grundriss der Historik
is heavy, pedantic, and confused beyond all imagina-
tion.1 Freeman, Tardif, and Chevalier tell us nothing
but what is elementary and obvious. Their followers
may still be observed discussing at interminable
length idle questions, such as : whether history is
a science or an art ; what are the duties of history ;
what is the use of history; and so on. On the
other hand, there is incontestable truth in the re-
mark that nearly all the specialists and historians
of to-day are, as far as method goes, self-taught,
with no training except what they have gained by
practice, or by imitating and associating with the
older masters of the craft.

But though many works on the principles of method
justify the distrust with which such works are gene-
rally regarded, and though most professed historians
have been able, apparently with no ill results, to
dispense with reflection upon historical method, it
would, in our opinion, be a strained inference to
conclude that specialists and historians (especially

Vhistoire, published in 1670 by Pere Le Moyne, a feeble production,
to say the least, bearing evident traces of senility, he expresses
himself as follows : " I cannot adopt all the maxims and precepts
contained in this treatise ; but I believe that, after that of Lucian,
it is the best we have yet seen, and I greatly doubt whether any of
those whose acquaintance we have still to make has risen to the
same height of philosophy and originality." Pere H. Che'rot has
given a sounder estimate of the treatise Be Vhistoire in his Etude
sur la vie et les ceuvres du P. Le Moyne (Paris, 1887, 8vo), pp. 406 sqq.
1 Bernheim declares, however (ibid. p. 177), that this little work
is, in his opinion, the only one which stands at the present level of
science.

Authors' Preface

those of the future) have no need to make themselves
acquainted with the processes of historical work.
The literature of methodology is, in fact, not without
its value : gradually there has been formed a treasury
of subtle observations and precise rules, suggested
by experience, which are something more than mere
common sense.1 And, admitting the existence of
those who, without having ever learnt to reason,
always reason well, by a gift of nature, it would be
easy to set against these exceptions innumerable
cases in which ignorance of logic, the Use of irra-
tional methods, want of reflection on the conditions
of historical analysis and synthesis, have robbed the
work of specialists and historians of much of its
value.

The truth is, that, of all branches of study, his-
tory is without a doubt the one in which it is most
necessary for students to have a clear consciousness
of the methods they use. The reason is, that. in
history instinctive methods are, as we cannot too
often repeat, irrational methods ; some preparation
is therefore required to counteract the first impulse.
Besides, the rational methods of obtaining historical
knowledge differ so widely from the methods of all
other sciences, that some perception of their distinc-
tive features is necessary to avoid the temptation of
applying to history the methods of those sciences
which have already been systematised. This explains
why mathematicians and chemists can, more easily
than historians, dispense with an " introduction " to

1 Flint says very well (ibid. p. 15) : "The course of Historic has
been, on the whole, one of advance from commonplace reflection
on history towards a philosophical comprehension of the conditions
and processes on which the formation of historical science depends.

8

Authors' Preface

their subject. There is no need to insist at greater
length on the utility of historical methodology, for
there is evidently nothing very serious in the attacks
which have been made on it. But it behoves us to
explain the reasons which have led to the composi-
tion of the present work. For the last fifty years a
great number of intelligent and open-minded men
have meditated on the methods of the historical
sciences. Naturally we find among them many his-
torians, university professors, whose position enables
them to understand better than others the intellec-
tual needs of the young ; but at the same time
professed logicians, and even novelists. In this
connection, Fustel de Coulanges left a tradition
behind him at the University of Paris. " He en-
deavoured," we are told,1 " to reduce the rules of
method to very precise formulae . . . ; in his view
no task was more urgent than that of teaching
students how to attain truth." Among these men,
some, like Renan,2 have been content to insert
scattered observations in their general works or
their occasional writings ; 3 others, as Fustel de

1 By P. Guiraud, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, March 1896,

P. 75-

2 Renan has said some of the truest and best things that have
ever been said on the historical sciences in L'Avenir de la science
(Paris, 1890, 8vo), written in 1848.

3 Some of the most ingenious, some of the most logical, and
some of the most widely applicable observations, on the method
of the historical sciences, have so far appeared, not in books on
methodology, but in the reviews — of which the Revue Critique
d'histoire et de UtUrature is the type — devoted to the criticism of
new works of history and erudition. It is a very useful exercise to
run through the file of the Revue Critique, founded, at Paris, in
1867, "to enforce respect for method, to execute justice upon bad
books, to check misdirected and superfluous work. "

9

Authors' Preface

Coulanges, Freeman, Droysen, Laurence, Stubbs, De
Smedt, Von Pflugk-Harttung, and so on, have taken
the trouble to express their thoughts on the subject
in special treatises. There are many books, "in-
augural lectures," " academic orations," and review-
articles, published in all countries, but especially in
France, Germany, England, the United States, and
Italy, both on the whole subject of methodology and
on the different parts of it. It will occur to the
reader that it would be a far from useless labour
to collect and arrange the observations which are
scattered, and, one might say, lost, in these numerous
books and minor writings. But it is^ too late to
undertake this pleasant task; it has been recently
performed, and in the most painstaking manner.
Professor Ernst Bernheim, of the University of
Greifswald, has worked through nearly all the
modern works on historical method, and the fruit
of his labours is an arrangement under appropriate
headings, most of them invented by himself, of a
great number of reflections and selected references.
His Lehrbuch der historischen Methode l (Leipzig, 1 894,
8vo) condenses, in the manner of German Lehrbucher,
the special literature of the subject of which it
treats. It is not our intention to do over again
what has already been done so well. But we are
of opinion that even after this laborious and well-
planned compilation something still remains to be
said. In the first place, Professor Bernheim deals
largely with metaphysical problems which we con-
sider devoid of interest ; while, conversely, he entirely
ignores certain considerations which appear to us to

1 The first edition of the Lehrbuch is dated 1889.
10

Authors' Preface

be, both theoretically and practically, of the greatest
importance. In the second place, the teaching of
the Lehrbuch is sound enough, but lacks vigour and
originality. Lastly, the Lehrbuch is not addressed to
the general public ; both the language in which it is
written and the form in which it is composed render
it inaccessible to the great majority of French
readers. This is enough to justify our undertak-
ing to write a book of our own, instead of simply
recommending the book of Professor Bernheim.1

II

This "Introduction to the Study of History" does
not claim, like the Lehrhtch der historischen Methode,
to be a treatise on historical methodology.2 It is a
sketch in outline. We undertook its composition,
at the beginning of the scholastic year 1896-97, in
order that the new students at the Sorbonne might
be warned what the study of history is and ought
to be.

Long experience has taught us the necessity of
such warnings. The greater part of those who enter
upon a career of historical study do so, as a matter
of fact, without knowing why, without having ever
asked themselves whether they are fitted for his-
torical work, of the true nature of which they are

1 The best work that has hitherto been published (in French) on
historical method is a pamphlet by MM. Ch. and V. Mortet, La
Science de Vhistoire (Paris, 1894, 8vo), 88 pp., extracted from vol. xx.
of the Grande Encyclopedic

2 One of us, M. Seignobos, proposes to publish later on a com-
plete treatise of Historical Methodology, if there appears to be a
public for this class of work.

II

Authors' Preface

often ignorant. Generally their motives for choosing
an historical career are of the most futile character.
One has been successful in history at college ; l
another feels himself drawn towards the past by the
same kind of romantic attraction which, we are told,
determined the vocation of Augustin Thierry ; some
are misled by the fancy that history is a compara-
tively easy subject, It is certainly important that
these irrational votaries should be enlightened and
put to the test as soon as possible.

Having given a course of lectures, to novices, by
way of " Introduction to the Study of History," we
thought that, with a little revision, these lectures
might be made useful to others besides novices.
Scholars and professed historians will doubtless
have nothing to learn from this work ; but if they
should find in it a stimulus to personal reflection,
on the craft which some of them practise in a
mechanical fashion, that would be something gained.

1 It cannot be too often stated that the study of history, as it is
prosecuted at school, does not presuppose the same aptitudes as
the same study when prosecuted at the university or in after life.
Julien Havet, who afterwards devoted himself to the (critical)
study of history, found history wearisome at school. " I believe,"
says M. L. Havet, " that the teaching of history [in schools] is not
organised in such a manner as to provide sufficient nourishment
for the scientific spirit. ... Of all the studies comprised in our
school curricula, history is the only one in which the pupil is not
being continually called upon to verify something. When he is
learning Latin or German, every sentence in a translation requires
him to verify a dozen different rules. In the various branches of
mathematics the results are never divorced from their proofs ; the
problems, too, compel the pupil to think through the whole for
himself. Where are the problems in history, and what schoolboy is
ever trained to gain by independent effort an insight into the inter-
connection of events?" {BibliotMque de VEcole des chartes, 1896,
p. 84).

12

Authors' Preface

As for the public, which reads the works of histo-
rians, is it not desirable that it should know how
these works are produced, in order to be able to
judge them better ?

We do not, therefore, like Professor Bernheim,
write exclusively for present and future specialists,
but also for the public interested in history. We
thus lay ourselves under an obligation to be as
concise, as clear, and as little technical as ' possible.
But to be concise and clear on subjects of this kind
often means to appear superficial. Commonplace
on the one hand, obscurity on the other : these, as
we have already seen, are the evils between' which
we have the sorry privilege of choosing. We admit
the difficulty. But we do not think it insurmount-
able, and our endeavour has been to say what we
had to say in the clearest possible manner.

The first half of the book has been written by
M. Langlois, the second by M. Seignobos; but the
two collaborators have constantly aided, consulted,
and checked each other.1

Paris, August 1897.

1 M. Langlois wrote Book I., Book II. as far as Chapter VI., the
second Appendix, and this Preface ; M. Seignobos the end of
Book II., Book III., and the first Appendix. Chapter I. in the
second book, Chapter V. of the third book, and the Conclusion,
were written in common.

13

BOOK I

PRELIMINARY STUDIES

!5

INTRODUCTION TO
THE STUDY OF HISTORY

BOOK I

PRELIMINARY STUDIES

CHAPTER I

THE SEARCH FOR DOCUMENTS (HEURISTIC)

The historian works with documents. Documents
are the traces which have been left by the thoughts
and actions of men of former times. Of these
thoughts and actions, however, very few leave any
visible traces, and these traces, when there are any,
are seldom durable ; an accident is enough to efface
them. Now every thought and every action that
has left no visible traces, or none but what have
since disappeared, is lost for history ; is as though it
had never been. For want of documents the history
of immense periods in the past of humanity is des-
tined to remain for ever unknown. For there is no
substitute for documents : no documents, no history.
In order to draw legitimate inferences from a
document to the fact of which it is the trace, numerous
precautions are requisite which will be indicated in

17 B

Preliminary Studies

the sequel. But it is clear that, prior to any critical
examination or interpretation of -documents, the
question presents itself whether there are any docu-
ments at all, how many there are, and where they are.
If I undertake to deal with a point of history,1 of what-
ever nature, my first step will be to ascertain the place
or places where the documents necessary for its treat-
ment, if any such exist, are to be found. The search
for and the collection of documents is thus a part,
logically the first and most important part, of the his-
torian's craft. In Germany it has received the conve-
nient, because short, name of JTeuristik. Is there any
need to prove the capital importance of Heuristic ?
Assuredly not. It is obvious that if it is neglected,
if the student does not, before he sets to work on a
point of history, place himself in a position to com-
mand all accessible sources of information, his risk
(no small one at the best) of working upon insuffi-
cient data is quite unnecessarily increased : works of
erudition or history constructed in accordance with
the rules of the most exact method have been vitiated,
or even rendered worthless, by the accidental circum-
stance that the author was unacquainted with the
documents by which those which he had within
reach, and with which he was content, might have
been illustrated, supplemented, or discredited. The
scholars and historians of to-day, standing, as they

1 In practice one does not as a rule resolve to treat a point of
history before knowing whether there are or are not documents in
existence which enable it to be studied. On the contrary, it is the
accidental discovery of a document which suggests the idea of
thoroughly elucidating the point of history to which it relates, and
thus leads to the collection, for this purpose, of other documents of
the same class.

18

The Search for Documents

do, in other respects on an equality with their pre-
decessors of the last few centuries, are only enabled
to surpass them by their possession of more abun-
dant means of information.1 Heuristic is, in fact,
easier to-day than it used to be, although the honest
Wagner has still good grounds for saying :

" Wie scliwer sind nicht die Mittel zu erwerben,
Durch die man zu den Quellen steigt ! " 2

Let us endeavour to explain why the collection of
documents, once so laborious, is still no easy matter,
in spite of the progress made in the last century ;
and how this essential operation may, in the course
of continued progress, be still further simplified.

I. Those who first endeavoured to write history
from the sources found themselves in an embarrassing
situation. Were the events they proposed to relate
recent, so that all the witnesses of them were not yet
dead ? They had the resource of interviewing the
witnesses who survived. Thucydides, Froissart, and
many others have followed this procedure. When
Mr. H. H. Bancroft,* the historian of the Pacific Coast
of California, resolved to collect materials for the
history of events many of the actors in which were
still alive, he mobilised a whole army of reporters
charged to extract conversations from them.3 But

1 It is pitiable to see how the best of the early scholars struggled
bravely, but vainly, to solve problems which would not even
have existed for them if their collections had not been so incom-
plete. This lack of material was a disadvantage for which the
most brilliant ingenuity could not compensate.

2 " How hard it is to gain the means whereby we mount to the
sources" (Goethe, Faust, i. 3).

3 See C. V. Langlois, H. H. Bancroft et Cic, in the Revue univer-
sitaire, 1894, i. p. 233.

19

Preliminary Studies

when the events to be related were ancient, so that no
man then living could have witnessed them, and no
account of them had been preserved by oral tradi-
tion, what then ? Nothing was left but to collect
documents of every kind, principally written ones,
relating to the distant past which was to be studied.
This was a difficult task at a time when libraries
were rare, archives secret, and documents scattered.
About the year i860, Mr. Bancroft, in California,
was in a situation analogous to that of the earlier
researchers in our part of the world. His plan was
as follows : He was rich ; he cleared the market of
all documents, printed or manuscript ; he negotiated
with financially embarrassed families and corporations
for the purchase of their archives, or the permission
to have them copied by his paid agents. This done,
he housed his collection in premises built for the
purpose, and classified it. Theoretically there could
not be a more rational procedure. But this rapid,
American method has only once been employed with
sufficient resources and sufficient consistency to ensure
its success ; at any other time, and in any other
place, it would have been out of the question. No-
where else have the circumstances been so favour-
able for it.

At the epoch of the Renaissance the documents
of ancient and modern history were scattered in in-
numerable private libraries and in innumerable depo-
sitories of archives, almost all of them inaccessible,
not to mention those which lay hidden beneath the
soil, their very existence as yet unsuspected. It was
at that time a physical impossibility to procure a
list of all the documents serving for the elucidation

20

The Search for Documents

of a question (for example, a list of all the manu-
scripts still preserved of an ancient work) ; and if,
by a miracle, such a list was to be had, it was another
impossibility to consult all these documents except
at the cost of journeys, expenses, and negotiations
without end. Consequences easy to foresee did, as
a matter of fact, ensue. ^ Firstly, the difficulties of
Heuristic being insurmountable, the earliest scholars
and historians — employing, as they did, not all the
documents, nor the best documents, but those docu-
ments on which they could lay their hands — were
nearly always ill-informed ; and their works are now
without interest except so far as they are founded on
documents which have since been lost. Secondly,
the first scholars and historians to be relatively well-
informed were those who, in virtue of their profes-
sion, had access to rich storehouses of documents —
librarians, keepers of archives, monks, magistrates,
whose order or whose corporation possessed libraries
or archives of considerable extent.1

It is true that collectors soon arose who, by money
payments, or by more questionable expedients, such
as theft, formed, with more or less regard for the
interests of scientific study, " cabinets " of collec-
tions of original documents, and of copies. But these

1 The earlier scholars were conscious of the unfavourable cbar-
acter of the conditions under which they worked. They suffered
keenly from the insufficiency of the instruments of research and
the means of comparison. Most of them made great efforts to
obtain information. Hence these voluminous correspondences be-
tween scholars of the last few centuries, of which our libraries pre-
serve so many precious fragments, and these accounts of scientific
searches, of journeys undertaken for the discovery of historical
documents, which, under the name of Iter {Iter Italicum, Iter Oer-
manicum, &c. ), were formerly fashionable.

21

Preliminary Studies

European collectors, of whom there has been a great
number since the fifteenth century, differ very notice-
ably from Mr. Bancroft. The Californian, in fact,
only collected documents relating to a particular
subject (the history of certain Pacific states), and his
ambition was to make his collection complete ; most
European collectors have acquired waifs and strays
and fragments of every description, forming, when
combined, totals which appear insignificant by the
side of the huge mass of historical documents which
existed at the time. Besides, it was not, in general,
with any purpose of making them generally accessible
that collectors like Peiresc, Gaignieres, Clair ambau It,
Colbert, and many others, withdrew from circulation
documents which were in danger of being lost ; they
were content (and it was creditable to do as much
as this) to share them, more or less freely, with their
friends. But collectors (and their heirs) are fickle
people, and sometimes eccentric in their notions.
Certainly it is better that documents should be pre-
served in private collections, than that they should
be entirely unprotected and absolutely inaccessible
to the scientific worker ; but in order that Heuristic
should be made really easier, the first condition is
that all collections of documents should be public.1

1 We may remark, in passing, a delusion which is childish enough
but very natural, and very common among collectors : they all tend
to exaggerate the intrinsic value of the documents they possess,
simply because they themselves are the possessors. Documents
have been published with a sumptuous array of commentaries by
persons who had accidentally acquired them, and who would, quite
rightly, have attached no importance to them if they had met with
them in public collections. This is, we may add, merely a manifesta-
tion, in a somewhat crude form, of a general tendency against which
it is always necessary to guard : a man readily exaggerates the

22

The Search for Documents

Now the finest private collections of documents —
libraries and museums combined — were naturally, in
the Europe of the Renaissance, those possessed by
kings. And "while other private collections were
often dispersed upon the death of their founders,
these, on the contrary, never ceased to grow; they
were enriched, indeed, by the wreckage of all the
others. The Cabinet des manuscrits de France, for
example, formed by the French kings, and by them
thrown open to the public, had, at the end of the
eighteenth century, absorbed the best part of the
collections which had been the personal work of the
amateurs and scholars of the two preceding centuries.1
Similarly in other countries. The concentration of a
great number of historical documents in vast public
(or semi-public) establishments was the fortunate
result of this spontaneous evolution.

The arbitrary proceedings of the Revolution were
still more favourable, and still more effective in
securing the amelioration of the material conditions
of historical research. The Revolution of 1789 in
France, analogous movements in other countries, led
to the violent confiscation, for the profit of the state
(that is, of everybody), of a host of private archives
and collections — the archives, libraries, and museums
of the crown, the archives and libraries of monas-
teries and suppressed corporations, and so on. In

importance of the documents he possesses, the documents he has
discovered, the texts he has edited, the ^persons and the questions
he has studied.

1 See L. Delisle, Le Cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliotheque nation-
ale, Paris, 1868-81, 3 vols. 4to. The histories of ancient depositories
of documents, which have been recently published in considerable
number, have been modelled on this admirable work.

23

Preliminary Studies

France, in 1790, the Constituent Assembly thus
placed the state in possession of a great number of
depositories of historical documents, previously scat-
tered, and guarded more or less jealously from the
curiosity of scholars ; these treasures have since
been divided among four different national insti-
tutions. The same phenomenon has been more
recently observed, on a smaller scale, in Germany,
Spain, and Italy.

The confiscations of the revolutionary period, as
well as the collections of the period which preceded
it, have both been productive of serious damage.
The collector is, or rather often was, a barbarian
who did not hesitate, when he saw a chance of
adding to his collection of specimens and rare
remains, to mutilate monuments, to dissect manu-
scripts, to break up whole archives, in order to
possess himself of the fragments. On this score
many acts of vandalism were perpetrated before the
Revolution. Naturally, the revolutionary procedure
of confiscation and transference was also productive
of lamentable consequences ; besides the destruction
which was the result of negligence and that which
was due to the mere pleasure of destroying, the
unfortunate idea arose that collections might be
systematically weeded, those documents only to be
preserved which were " interesting " or " useful," the
rest to be got rid of. The task of weeding was
entrusted to well-meaning but incompetent and
overworked men, who were thus led to commit
irreparable havoc in our ancient archives. At the
present day there are workers engaged in the task,
one requiring an extraordinary amount of time,

24

The Search for Documents

patience, and care, of restoring1 the dismembered
collections, and replacing the fragments which were
then isolated in so brutal a manner by these zealous
but unreflecting manipulators of historical docu-
ments. It must be recognised, moreover, that the
mutilations due to revolutionary activity and the
pre-revolutionary collectors are insignificant in com-
parison with those which are the result of accident
and the destructive work of time. But had they
been ten times as serious, they would have been
amply compensated by two advantages of the first
importance, on which we cannot lay too much stress :
(i) the concentration, in a relatively small number
of depositories, of documents which were formerly
scattered, and, as it were, lost, in a hundred different
places; (2) the opening of these depositories to the
public. The remnant of historical documents which
has survived the destructive effects of accident and
vandalism is now at last safely housed, classified,
made accessible, and treated as public property.

Ancient historical documents are now, as we have
seen, collected and preserved chiefly in those public
institutions which are called archives, libraries, and
museums. It is true that this does not apply to all
existing documents ; in spite of the unceasing acqui-
sitions by purchase and gift which archives, libraries,
and museums all over the world have been making
every year for a 9 long time past, there still exist
private collections, dealers who supply them, and
documents in circulation. But the exceptions, which
in this case are negligeable, do not affect the general
rule. Besides, all the ancient documents which, in
limited quantity, still range at large, are destined

25

Preliminary Studies

sooner or later to find their way into the state in-
stitutions, whose doors are always open to let in,
but never to let out.1

It is to be desired, as a matter of principle, that
the depositories of documents (archives, libraries,
and museums) should not be too numerous ; and we
have pointed out that, fortunately, they are now
beyond comparison less numerous than they were
a hundred years ago. Could not the centralisation
of documents, with its evident advantages for re-
searchers, be carried still further ? Are there not
still collections of documents of which it would be
hard to justify the separate existence ? Perhaps ; 2
but the problem of the centralisation of documents
is no longer urgent, now that the processes of re-

1 Many of the ancient documents still in circulation are the pro-
ceeds of ancient thefts from state institutions. The precautions
now taken against a recurrence of such depredations are stringent,
and, in nearly every instance, as effective as could be desired.

As to modern (printed) documents, the rule of legal deposit
[compulsory presentation of copies to specified libraries], which
has now been adopted by nearly all civilised countries, guarantees
their preservation in public institutions.

2 It is known that Napoleon I. entertained the chimerical design
of concentrating at Paris the archives of the whole of Europe, and
that, for a beginning, he conveyed to that city the archives of the
Vatican, the Holy Roman Empire, the crown of Castile, and others,
which later on the French were compelled to restore. Confiscation
is now out of the question. But the ancient archives of the notaries
might be centralised everywhere, as in some countries they are
already, in public institutions. It is not easy to explain why at
Paris the departments of Foreign Affairs, of War, and of Marine
preserve ancient papers whose natural place would be at the
Archives Nationales. A great many more anomalies of this kind
might be mentioned, which in certain cases impede, where they do
not altogether preclude, research ; for the small collections, whose
existence is not required, are precisely those whose regulations are
the most oppressive.

26

The Search for Documents

production have been perfected, especially as the
inconveniences arising from a multitude of deposi-
tories are met by the expedient, now in general use,
of allowing the documents to travel : it is now
possible for the student to consult, without expense,
in the public library of the city where he resides,
documents belonging, say, to the libraries of St.
Petersburg, Brussels, and Florence ; we now rarely
meet with institutions like the Archives Nationales
at Paris, the British Museum at London, and the
Mejanes Library at Aix-en-Provence, whose statutes
absolutely prohibit all lending-out of their contents.1

II. It being granted that the majority of historical
documents are now preserved in public institutions
(archives, libraries, and museums), Heuristic would
be very easy if only good descriptive catalogues
had been drawn up of all the existing collections
of documents, if these catalogues were furnished
with indexes, or if general repertories (alphabetical,
systematic, &c.) had been made relating to them;
lastly, if there were some place where it was pos-
sible to consult the complete collection of all these
catalogues and their indexes. But Heuristic is still
difficult, because these conditions are, unfortunately,
still very far from being adequately realised.

1 The international exchange of documents is worked in Europe
(without charge to the public) by the agency of the various Foreign
Offices. Besides this, most of the great institutions have agreements
with each other for mutual loans ; this system is as sure and some-
times more rapid in its operation than the diplomatic system. The
question of lending original documents for use outside the institu-
tion where they are preserved has of late years been frequently
mooted at congresses of historians and librarians. The results so
far obtained are eminently satisfactory.

27

Preliminary Studies

Firstly, there are depositories of documents
(archives, libraries, and museums) whose contents
have never been even partially catalogued, so that
no one knows what is in them. The depositories of
which we possess complete descriptive catalogues are
rare ; there are many collections preserved in cele-
brated institutions which have only been catalogued
in part, and the bulk of which still remains to be
described.1 In the second place, what a variety there
is among existing catalogues ! There are some old
ones which do not now correspond to the present
classification of documents, and which cannot be
used without reference- tables ; there are new ones
which are equally based on obsolete systems, too
detailed or too summary ; some are printed, others
in manuscript, on registers or slips ; some are care-
fully executed and clear, many are scamped, in-
adequate, and provisional. Taking printed catalogues
alone, it requires a whole apprenticeship to learn to
distinguish, in this enormous mass of confusion,
between what is trustworthy and what is not; in
other words, to make any use of them at all. Lastly,
where are the existing catalogues to be consulted ?
Most of the great libraries only possess incomplete
collections of them ; there is no general guide to
them anywhere.

This is a deplorable state of things. In fact, the
documents contained in uncatalogued depositories

1 These are sometimes large collections of formidable bulk ; it is
more natural to undertake the cataloguing of small accumulations
which demand less labour. It is for the same reason that many
insignificant but short cartulrries have been published, while
several cantularies of the highest importance, being voluminous,
have still to be edited.

28

The Search for Documents

and collections are practically non-existent for re-
searchers who have no leisure to work through the
whole of their contents for themselves. We have
said before : no documents, no history. But to
have no good descriptive catalogues of collections
of documents means, in practice, to be unable to
ascertain the existence of documents otherwise than
by chance. We infer that the progress of history
depends in great measure on the progress of the
general catalogue of historical documents which is
still fragmentary and imperfect. On this point
there is general agreement. Pere Bernard de
Montfaucon considered his Bihliotheca bibliothecarum
manuscriptarum nova, a collection of library cata-
logues, as " the most useful and most interesting
work he had produced in his whole life." 1 " In the
present state of science," wrote Renan in 1848,2
" nothing is wanted more urgently than a critical
catalogue of the manuscripts in the different libraries
... a humble task to all appearance ; . . . and
yet the researches of scholars are hampered and in-
complete pending its definitive completion." " We
should have better books on our ancient literature,"
says M. P. Meyer,3 " if the predecessors of M. Delisle
[in his capacity of administrator of the Bibliotheque
Nationale at Paris] had applied themselves with
equal ardour and diligence to the cataloguing of the
treasures committed to their care."

It will be well to indicate briefly the causes and
state the exact consequences of a state of things

1 See his autobibliography, published by E. de Broglie, Bernard
de Montfaucon ct les Bernardins, ii. (Paris, 1891, 8vo), p. 323.

2 E. Renan, UAvenir de la science, p. 217.

3 Romania, xxi. (1892), p. 625.

29

Preliminary Studies

which has been deplored as long as scholars have
existed, and which is improving, though slowly. " I
assure you," said Renan,1 " that the few hundred
thousand francs a Minister of Public Instruction
might apply to the purpose [of preparing catalogues]
would be better employed than three-quarters of
the sum now devoted to literature." It is rare to
find a minister, in France or elsewhere, convinced of
this truth, and resolute enough to act accordingly.
Besides, it has not always been true that, in order
to obtain good catalogues, it is sufficient, as well as
necessary, to make a pecuniary sacrifice : it is only
recently that the best methods of describing docu-
ments have been authoritatively fixed ; the task of
recruiting competent workers — no great difficulty
nowadays — would have been neither easy nor free
from anxiety at an epoch when competent workers
were rarer than they are now. So much for the
material obstacles — want of money and want of men.
A cause of another kind has not been without its
influence. The functionaries charged with the
administration of depositories of documents have
not always displayed the zeal which they now
display for making their collections accessible by
means of accurate catalogues. To prepare a cata-
logue (in the exact and at the same time summary
form which is now used) is a laborious task, a task
without joy and without reward. It has often
happened that such a functionary, living, in virtue
of his office, in the midst of documents which he is
at liberty to consult at any moment, and placed in
a much more favourable position than the general

1 In the passage quoted above.
30

The Search for Documents

public for utilising the collection without the aid of
a catalogue, and making discoveries in the process,
has preferred to work for himself rather than for
others, and made the tedious construction of a
catalogue a secondary matter compared with his
personal researches.

Who are the persons that in our own day have
discovered, published, and annotated the greatest
number of documents ? The functionaries attached
to the depositories of documents. Without a doubt
this circumstance has retarded the progress of the
general catalogue of historical documents. The situa-
tion has been this: the persons who were the best
able to dispense with catalogues were precisely the
persons whose duty it was to make them.

The imperfection of descriptive catalogues has con-
sequences which deserve our attention. On the one
hand, we can never be sure that we have exhausted
all the sources of information ; who knows what may
be held in reserve by the uncatalogued collections?1

1 Mr. H. H. Bancroft, in his Memoirs,entitled " Literary Industries "
(New York, 1891, i6mo), analyses with sufficient minuteness some
practical consequences of the imperfection of the methods of re-
search. He considers the case of an industrious writer proposing
to write the history of California. He easily procures a few books,
reads them, takes notes ; these books refer him to others, which he
consults in the public libraries of the city where he resides. Several
years are passed in this manner, at the end of which he perceives
that he has not a tenth part of the resources in his hands ; he
travels, maintains correspondences, but, finally despairing of exhaust-
ing the subject, he comforts his conscience and pride with the
reflection that he has done much, and that many of the works he
has not seen, like many of those he has, are probably of very slight
historic value. As to newspapers and the myriads of United States
government reports, all of them containing facts bearing on Cali-
fornian history ; being a sane man, he has never dreamed of
searching them from beginning to end : he has turned over a few

31

Preliminary Studies

On the other hand, in order to obtain the maximum
amount of information, it is necessary to be thoroughly
acquainted with the resources furnished by the exist-
ing literature of Heuristic, and to devote a great deal
of time to preliminary researches. In point of fact,
every one who proposes to collect documents for the
treatment of a point of history begins by consulting
indexes and catalogues.1 Novices set about this im-
portant operation so slowly, with so little skill, and
with so much effort, as to move more experienced
workers to mirth or pity, according to their dis-
position. Those who find amusement in watching
novices stumble and strain and waste their time in
the labyrinth of catalogues, neglecting those which
are valuable, and thoroughly exploring those which
are useless, remember that they also have passed

of them, that is all ; he knows that each of these fields of research
would afford a labour of several years, and that all of them would
fill the better part of his life with drudgery. As for oral testimony
and manuscripts, he will gather a few unpublished anecdotes in
chance conversations ; he will obtain access to a few family papers ;
all this will appear in his book as notes and authorities. Now and
again he will get hold of a few documentary curiosities among the
state archives, but as it would take fifteen years to master the
whole collection, he will naturally be content to glean a little here
and there. Then he begins to write. He does not feel called upon
to inform the public that he has not seen all the documents ; on
the contrary, he makes the most of what he has been able to pro-
cure in the course of twenty-five years of industrious research.

1 Some dispense with personal search by invoking the assistance
of the functionaries charged with the administration of depositories
of documents ; the indispensable search is, in these cases, con-
ducted by the functionaries instead of by the public. Cf. Bouvard
ct Pecuchct, p. 158. Bouvard and Pecuchet resolve to write the
life of the Duke of Angouleme ; for this purpose "they determined
to spend several days at the municipal library of Caen to make
researches. The librarian placed general histories and pamphlets
at their disposal. ..."

32

The Search for Documents

through similar experiences: let every one have his
turn. Those who observe with regret this waste of
time and strength consider that, while inevitable up
to a certain point, it serves no good purpose ; they
ask whether something might not be done to miti-
gate the severity of this apprenticeship to Heuristic,
which at one time cost them so dear. Besides, is
not research, in the present condition of its material
aids, difficult enough whatever the experience of
the researcher ? There are scholars and historians
who devote the best part of their powers to material
searches. Certain branches of historical work, re-
lating chiefly to mediseval and modern subjects (the
documents of ancient history are fewer, have been
more studied, and are better catalogued than the
others), imply not merely the assiduous use of
catalogues, not* all furnished with indexes, but also
the personal inspection of the whole contents of
immense collections which are either badly cata-
logued or not catalogued at all. Experience proves
beyond a doubt that the prospect of these long
searches, which must be performed before the more
intellectual part of the work can be begun, has
deterred, and continues to deter, men of excellent
abilities from undertaking historical work. They
are, in fact, confronted with a dilemma : either they
must work on a supply of documents which is in
all probability incomplete, or they must spend
themselves in unlimited searches, often fruitless, the
results of which seldom appear worth the time they
have cost. It goes against the grain to spend a
great part of one's life in turning over catalogues
without indexes, or in passing under review, one

33 c

Preliminary Studies

after another, all the items which go to form
accumulations of uncatalogued miscellanea, in order
to obtain information (positive or negative) which
might have been obtained easily and instantane-
ously if the collections had been catalogued and
if the catalogues had been indexed. The most
serious consequence of the present imperfection
of the material aids to Heuristic is the discourage-
ment which is sure to be felt by many able men
who know their worth, and have some sense of the
due proportion of effort and reward.1

If it lay in the nature of things that the search
for historical documents, in public depositories,
must necessarily be as laborious as it still is, we
might resign ourselves to the inconvenience : no
one thinks of regretting the inevitable expenditure
of time and labour which is demanded by archaeo-
logical research, whatever the results may prove to
be. But the imperfection of the modern instru-
ments of Heuristic is quite unnecessary. The state
of things which existed for some centuries has now
been reformed indifferently; there is no valid reason
why it should not some day be reformed altogether.
We are thus led, after treating of the causes and
the effects, to say a few words about the remedies.

The instruments of Heuristic are being con-
tinually perfected, before our eyes, in two ways.
Every year witnesses an increase in the number
of descriptive catalogues of archives, libraries, and
museums, prepared by the functionaries attached to
these institutions. In addition to this, powerful

1 These considerations have already been presented and deve-
loped in the Revue universitairc, 1894, i. p. 321 sqq.

34

The Search for Documents

learned societies employ experts to pass from one
depository to another cataloguing the documents
there, in order to pick out all the documents of a
particular class, or relating to a special subject: thus
the society of Bollandists caused a general catalogue
of hagiographical documents to be prepared by its
emissaries, and the Imperial Academy of Vienna
catalogued in a similar manner the monuments of
patristic literature. The society of the Monumenta
Germanice Historica has for a long time been con-
ducting vast searches of the same kind ; and it was
by the same process of exploring the museums and
libraries of the whole of Europe that the construc-
tion of the Corpus Iiiscriptionum Latinarum was
lately rendered possible. Lastly, several govern-
ments have taken the initiative in sending abroad
persons charged to catalogue, on their behalf, docu-
ments in which they are interested : thus England,
the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United States,
and other governments, grant regular subsidies to
agents of theirs occupied in cataloguing and tran-
scribing, in the great depositories of Europe, the
documents which relate to the history of England,
the Netherlands, Switzerland, the United States,
and the rest.1 With what rapidity and with what

1 It is well known that, since the opening of the Papal Archives,
several governments and learned societies have established In-
stitutes at Rome, the members of which are, for the most part,
occupied in cataloguing and making known the documents of these
archives, in co-operation with the functionaries of the Vatican.
The French School at Rome, the Austrian Institute, the Prussian
Institute, the Polish Mission, the Institute of the " Goerresgesell-
schaft," Belgian, Danish, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and other
scholars, have performed, and are performing, cataloguing work of
considerable extent in the archives of the Vatican.

35

Preliminary Studies

perfection these useful labours can be conducted,
provided that a competent staff, suitably directed,
can be had as well as the money to pay it, is
shown by the history of the general catalogue of the
manuscripts in the public libraries of France. This
excellent descriptive catalogue was begun in 1885,
and now, in 1897, it extends to nearly fifty volumes,
and will soon be completed. The Corpus Inscrip-
tionum Latinarum will have been produced in less
than fifty years. The results obtained by the
Bollandists and the Imperial Academy of Vienna
are not less conclusive. Assuredly nothing is now
lacking, except funds, to secure the speedy en-
dowment of historical study with the indispensable
instruments of research. The methods employed
in the construction of these instruments are now
permanently fixed, and it is an easy matter to
recruit a trained staff. Such a staff must evidently
be largely composed of keepers of archives and
professional librarians, but it would also contain
unattached workers with a decided vocation for
the construction of catalogues and indexes. Such
workers are more numerous than one would at
first be inclined to think. Not that cataloguing
is easy : it requires patience, the most scrupulous
attention, and the most varied learning ; but many
minds are attracted by tasks which, like this, are at
once determinate, capable of being definitely com-
pleted, and of manifest utility. In the large and
heterogeneous family of those who labour to pro-
mote the progress of historical study, the makers
of descriptive catalogues and indexes form a section
to themselves. When they devote themselves ex-

36

The Search for Documents

clusively to their art they acquire by practice, as
one might expect, a high degree of dexterity.

While waiting for the fact to be clearly recognised
that the time is opportune for pushing vigorously in
every country the construction of a general catalogue
of historical documents, we may indicate a palliative :
it is important that scholars and historians, especially
novices, should be accurately informed of the state
of the instruments of research which are at their
disposal, and be regularly apprised of any improve-
ments that from time to time may be made in
them. Experience and accident have been for a
long time trusted to supply this information; but
empirical knowledge, besides being costly, as we
have already pointed out, is almost always imper-
fect. Recently the task has been undertaken of
constructing catalogues of catalogues — critical and
systematic lists of all the catalogues in existence.
There can be no doubt that few bibliographical
enterprises have possessed, in so great a degree, the
character of general utility.

But scholars and historians often need, in respect
of documents, information not usually supplied by
descriptive catalogues ; they wish, for example, to
know whether such and such a document is known
or not, whether it has already been critically dealt
with, annotated, or utilised.1 This information can
only be found in the works of former scholars and

1 Catalogues of documents sometimes, but not always, mention
the fact that such and such a document has been edited, dealt with
critically, utilised. The generally received rule is that the compiler
mentions circumstances of this kind when he is aware of them, .
without imposing on himself the enormous task of ascertaining the
truth on this head in every instance where he is ignorant of it.

37

Preliminary Studies

historians. In order to become acquainted with
these works, recourse must be had to those " biblio-
graphical repertories," properly so called, of all kinds,
compiled from very different points of view, which
have already been published. Among the indis-
pensable instruments of Heuristic must thus be
reckoned bibliographical repertories of historical
literature, as well as repertories of catalogues of
original documents.

To supply the classified list of all those repertories
(repertories of catalogues, bibliographical repertories,
properly so called), together with other appropriate
information, in order to save students from mistakes
and waste of time, is the object of what we are at
liberty to call the " science of repertories," or " his-
torical bibliography." Professor Bernheim has pub-
lished a preliminary sketch1 of it, which we have
endeavoured to expand.2 The expanded sketch bears
date April 1896: numerous additions, not to speak
of revision, would already be necessary, for the biblio-
graphical apparatus of the historical sciences is being
renewed, at the present time, with astonishing rapidity.
A book on the repertories for the use of scholars
and historians is, as a general rule, out of date the
day after it has been completed.

III. The knowledge of repertories is useful to all;
the preliminary search for documents is laborious to
all; but not in the same degree. Certain parts of
history, which have been long cultivated, now enjoy

1 E. Bernheim, Lehrbuch tier historischcn Methode, 2nd ed., pp.
196-202.

2 C. V. Langlois, Manuel de Bibliographie historique : I. Instru-
ments libliographiques, Paris, 1896, i6mo.

38

The Search for Documents

the advantage of having all their documents described,
collected, and classified in large publications devoted
to the purpose, so that, in dealing with these sub-
jects, the historian can do all that need be done at
his desk. The study of local history does not gene-
rally require more than local search. Some important
monographs are based on a small number of docu-
ments, all belonging to the same collection, and of
such a nature that it would be superfluous to look
for others elsewhere. On the other hand, a humble
piece of work, such as a modest edition of a text of
which the ancient copies are not rare, and are to be
found scattered in several libraries of Europe, may
have involved inquiries, negotiations, and journeys
without end. Since the majority of the documents
of mediaeval and modern history are still unedited,
or badly edited, it may be laid down as a general
principle that, in order to write a really new chapter
of mediseval or modern history, it is necessary to
have long haunted the great depositories of original
documents, and to have, if we may use the expres-
sion, worried their catalogues.

It is thus incumbent on every one to choose the
subject of his labours with the greatest care, instead
of leaving it to be determined by pure chance.
There are some subjects which, in the present state
of the instruments of research, cannot be treated
except at the cost of enormous searches in which
life and intellect are consumed without profit.
These subjects are not necessarily more interesting
than others, and some day, perhaps to-morrow, im-
provements in the aids to research will make them
easily manageable. It is necessary for the student

39

Preliminary Studies

consciously and deliberately to make his choice
between different historical subjects depend on the
existence or non-existence of particular catalogues
of documents and bibliographical repertories; on
his relative inclination for desk work on the one
hand, and the labour of exploring depositories on
the other ; even on the facilities he has for making
use of particular collections. " Is it possible to do
work in the provinces ? " Renan asked at the con-
gress of learned societies at the Sorbonne in 1889;
and gave a very good answer to his own question :
" At least half one's scientific work can be done at
one's, own desk. . . . Take comparative philology,
for example : with an initial outlay of some thou-
sands of francs, and subscriptions to three or four
special publications, a student would command all
the tools of his trade. . . . The same applies to
universal philosophy. . . . Many branches of study
can thus be prosecuted quite privately, and in
the closest retirement." l Doubtless, but there are
"rarities, specialities, researches which require the
aid of powerful machinery." One half of historical
work may now be done in private, with limited
resources, but only half; the other half still pre-
supposes the employment of such resources, in the
way of repertories and documents, as can only be
found in the great centres of study; often, indeed,
it is necessary to visit several of these centres in
succession. In short, the case stands with history
riluch as it does with geography : in respect of some
portions of the globe, we possess documents pub-
lished in manageable form sufficiently complete and

1 E. Renan, Feuilles detaches (Paris, 1892, 8vo), pp. 96 sqq.
40

The Search for Documents

sufficiently well classified to enable us to reason
about them to good purpose without leaving our
fireside; while in the case of an unexplored or
badly explored region, the slightest monograph
implies a considerable expenditure of time and
physical strength. It is dangerous to choose a
subject of study, as many do, without having first
realised the nature and extent of the preliminary
researches which it demands; there are instances
of men struggling for years with such researches,
who might have been occupied to better advantage
in work of another character. As precautions
against this danger, which is the more formidable
to novices the more active and zealous they are, an
examination of the present conditions of Heuristic
in general, and positive notions of Historical Biblio-
graphy, are certainly to be warmly recommended.

4i

CHAPTER II

"AUXILIARY SCIENCES"

Let us suppose that the preliminary searches,
treated of in the preceding chapter, have been
made methodically and successfully; the greater
part, if not the whole, of the documents bearing on
a given subject have been discovered and made
available. Of two things one : either these docu-
ments have been already subjected to critical
elaboration, or they are in the condition of raw
material ; this is a point which must be settled by
" bibliographical " researches, which also, as we have
already observed, form part of the inquiries which
precede the logical part of the work. In the first
case, where the documents have already gone
through a process of elaboration, it is necessary to
be in a position to verify the accuracy of the critical
work ; in the second case, where the documents are
still raw material, the student must do the critical
work himself. In both cases certain antecedent
and auxiliary knowledge of a positive kind, Vor-
und Hillfskenntnisse, as they are called, are every
whit as indispensable as the habit of accurate rea-
soning ; for if, in the course of critical work, it is
possible to go wrong through reasoning badly, it is
also possible to go wrong out of pure ignorance.

42

" Auxiliary Sciences "

The profession of a scholar or historian is, moreover,
similar in this respect to all other professions ; it is
impossible to follow it without possessing a certain
equipment of technical notions, whose absence neither
natural aptitude nor even method can make good.
In what, then, does the technical npprenticeship of
the scholar or the historian consist ? Or, to employ
language which, though inappropriate, as we shall
endeavour to show, is in more common use : what,
in addition to the knowledge of repertories, are the
" auxiliary sciences " of history ?
^ Daunou, in his Gours d'dtudes historiqves,1 has
proposecf a question of the same kind. " What
studies," says he, " will the intending historian need
to have gone through, what kinds of knowledge ought
he to have acquired, in order to begin writing a work
with any hope of success ? " Before him, Mably, in
his Traits de Vttude de Vhistoire, had also recognised
that " there are preparatory studies with which no
historian can dispense." But on this subject Mably
and Daunou entertained views which nowadays seem
singular enough. It is instructive to mark the exact
distance which separates their point of view from
ours. " First of all," said Mably, " study the law of
nature, public law, moral and political science."
Daunou, a man of great judgment, permanent secre-
tary to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-
Lettres, writing about 1820, divides the studies
which, in his opinion, constitute "the apprentice-
ship of the historian," into three classes — literary,
philosophical, historical. On the " literary ' studies
he expatiates at great length : to begin with, the

1 vii. p. 228 sqq.

43

Preliminary Studies

historian must " have read with attention the great
models." Which great models ? Daunou " does not
hesitate " to place in the front rank " the master-
pieces of epic poetry ; " for " it is the poets who have
created the art of narrative, and whoever has not
learnt it from them cannot have more than an im-
perfect knowledge of it." He further recommends
the reading of modern novels ; " they will teach the
method of giving an artistic pose to persons and
events, of distributing details, of skilfully carrying
on the thread of the narrative, of interrupting it,
of resuming it, of sustaining the attention and pro-
voking the curiosity of the reader." Finally, good
historical works should be read : " Herodotus, Thucy-
dides, Xenophon, Polybius, and Plutarch among the
Greeks ; Caesar, Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus among
the Latins; and among the moderns, Macchiavelli,
Guicciardini, Giannone, Hume, Robertson, Gibbon,
the Cardinal de Retz, Vertot, Voltaire, Raynal, and
Rulhiere. Not that I would exclude the others, but
these will suffice to provide all the styles which are
suitable for history ; for a great diversity of form is
to be met with in the works of these writers." In the
second place come philosophical studies ; a thorough
mastery of " ideology, morals, and politics " is re-
quired. " As to the works from which knowledge
of this kind is to be obtained, Daguesseau has in-
stanced Aristotle, Cicero, Grotius : I should add the
best ancient and modern moralists, treatises on poli-
tical economy published since the middle of the last
century, the writings on political science in general,
and on its details and application, of Macchiavelli,
Bod in, Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Mably, and the

44

"Auxiliary Sciences"

most enlightened of their disciples and commenta-
tors." In the third place, before writing history,
" it is evidently necessary to know it." " A writer
will not give the world new information on a subject
like this unless he begins by making himself master
of what is already known of it." The future historian
has alreadjr made the acquaintance of the best his-
torical works, and studied them as models of style ;
" it will be to his advantage to read them a second
time, but endeavouring more particularly to grasp
all the facts which they contain, and to let them
make so deep an impression on his mind that they
may be permanently fixed in his memory."

These are the "positive" notions which, eighty
years ago, were considered indispensable to the
general historian. At the same time there was a
confused idea that " in order to acquire a profound
knowledge of' particular subjects " there were yet
other useful branches of study. "The subjects of
which historians treat," says Daunou, " the details
which they occasionally light upon, require very
extensive and varied attainments." He goes on to
particularise, observe in what terms : " very often a
knowledge of several languages, sometimes too some
notion of physics and mathematics." And he adds :
" On these subjects, however, the general education
which we may assume to be common to all men of
letters is sufficient for the writer who devotes himself
to historical composition. . . ."

All the authors who, like Daunou, have attempted
to enumerate the preliminary attainments, as well
as the moral or intellectual aptitudes, necessary for
" writing history," have either fallen into common-

45

Preliminary Studies

place or pitched their requirements ridiculously high.
According to Freeman, the historian ought to know
everything — philosophy, law, finance, ethnography,
geography, anthropology, natural science, and what
not ; is not an historian, in point of fact, likely
enough in the course of his study of the past to
meet with questions of philosophy, law, finance, and
the rest of the series ? And if financial science, for
example, is necessary to a writer who treats of con-
temporary finance, is it less so to the writer who
claims to express an opinion on the financial questions
of the past ? " The historian," Freeman declares,
" may have incidentally to deal with any subject
whatever, and the more branches of knowledge he
is master of, the better prepared he is for his own
work." True, all branches of human knowledge are
not equally useful ; some of them are only service-
able on rare occasions, and accidentally : " We could
hardly make it even a counsel of perfection to the
historian to make himself an accomplished chemist,
on the chance of an occasion in which chemistry
might be of use to him in his study ; " but other
special subjects are more closely related to history :
" for example, geology and a whole group of sciences
which have a close connection with geology . . . The
historian will clearly do his own regular work better
for being master of them . . ." * The question has

1 E. A. Freeman, The Methods of Historical Study (Loudon, 1885,
8vo), p. 45.

In France geography has lona; been regarded as a science closely
related to history. An Agregation, which combines history and
geography, exists at the present day, and in the lycees history and
geography arc taught by the same professors. Many people persist
in asserting the legitimacy of this combination, and even take

46

"Auxiliary Sciences"

also been asked whether "history is one of those
studies anciently called umbratiles, for which all that
is wanted is a quiet mind and habits of industry," or
whether it is a good thing for the historian to have
mingled in the turmoil of active life, and to have
helped to make the history of his own time before
sitting down to write that of the past. Indeed, what
questions have not been asked ? Floods of ink have
been poured out over these uninteresting and un-
answerable questions, the long and fruitless debating
of which has done not a little to discredit works on
methodology. Our opinion is that nothing relevant
can be added to the dictates of mere common sense
on the subject of the apprenticeship to the "art of
writing history," unless perhaps that this apprentice-
ship should consist, above everything, in the study,
hitherto so generally neglected, of the principles of
historical method.

Besides, it is not the "literary historian," the
moralising and quill-driving "historians," as con-
ceived by Daunou and his school, that we have
had in view; we are here only concerned with

umbrage when it is proposed to separate two branches of knowledge
united, as they say, by many essential connecting links. But it
would be hard to find any good reason, or any facts of experience,
to prove that a professor of history, or an historian, is so much the
better the more he knows of geology, oceanography, climatology,
and the whole group of geographical sciences. In fact, it is with
some impatience, and to no immediate advantage, that students of
history work through the courses of geography which their curricula
force upon them; and those students who have a real taste for
geography would be very glad to throw history overboard. The
artificial union of history with geography dates back, in France, to
an epoch when geography was an ill-defined and ill-arranged subject,
regarded by all as a negligeable branch of study. It is a relic of
antiquity that we ought to get rid of at once.

47

Preliminary Studies

those scholars and historians who intend to deal
with documents in order to facilitate or actually
perform the scientific work of history. These stand
in need of a technical apprenticeship. What meaning
are we to attach to this term ?

Let us suppose we have before us a written docu-
ment. What use can we make of it if we cannot
read it ? Up to the time of Francois Champollion,
Egyptian documents, being written in hieroglyphics,
were, without metaphor, a dead-letter. It will be
readily admitted that in order to deal with ancient
Assyrian history it is necessary to have learnt to
decipher cuneiform inscriptions. Similarly, whoever
desires to do original work from the sources, in
ancient or mediaeval history, will, if he is prudent,
learn to decipher inscriptions and manuscripts.
We thus see why Greek and Latin epigraphy and
mediaeval palaeography — that is, the sum of the
various kinds of knowledge required for the deci-
phering of ancient and mediaeval manuscripts and
inscriptions — are considered as " auxiliary sciences "
to history, or rather, the historical study of antiquity
and the middle ages. It is evident that mediaeval
Latin palaeography forms part of the necessary
outfit of the mediae valist, just as the palaeography
of hieroglyphics is essential to the Egyptologist.
There is, however, a difference to be observed.
No one will ever think of devoting himself to
Egyptology without having first studied the appro-
priate palaeography. On the other hand, it is not
very rare for a man to undertake the study of local
documents of the middle ages without having learnt
to date their forms approximately, and to decipher

48

" Auxiliary Sciences "

their abbreviations correctly. The resemblance which
most mediaeval writing bears to modern writing is
sufficiently close to foster the illusion that ingenuity
and practice will be enough to carry him through.
This illusion is dangerous. Scholars who have
received no regular palaaographical initiation can
almost always be recognised by the gross errors which
they commit from time to time in deciphering —
errors which are sometimes enough to completely
ruin the subsequent operations of criticism and
interpretation. As for the self-taught experts who
acquire their skill by dint of practice, the orthodox
palaBographic initiation which they have missed
would at least have saved them much groping in
the dark, long hours of labour, and many a dis-
appointment.

Suppose a document has been deciphered. How
is it to be turned to account, unless it be first
understood ? Inscriptions in Etruscan and the
ancient language of Cambodia have been read, but
no one understands them. As long as this is the
case they must remain useless. It is clear that
in order to deal with Greek history it is necessary
to consult documents in the Greek language, and
therefore necessary to know Greek. Kank truism,
the reader will say. Yes, but many proceed as if
it had never occurred to them. Young students
attack ancient history with only a superficial tincture
of Greek and Latin. Many who have never studied
mediaeval French and Latin think they know them
because they understand classical Latin and modern
French, and they attempt the interpretation of texts
whose literal meaning escapes them, or appears to

49 d

Preliminary Studies

be obscure when in reality perfectly plain. Innu-
merable historical errors owe their origin to false
or inexact interpretations of quite straightforward
texts, perpetrated by men who were insufficiently
acquainted with the grammar, the vocabulary, or
the niceties of ancient languages. Solid philological
study ought logically to precede historical research
in every instance where the documents to be
employed are not to be had in a modern lan-
guage, and in a form in which they can be easily
understood.

Suppose a document is intelligible. It would not
be legitimate to take it into consideration without
having verified its authenticity, if its authenticity
has not been already settled beyond a doubt. Now
in order to verify the authenticity or ascertain the
origin of a document two things are required — reason-
ing power and knowledge. In other words, it is
necessary to reason from certain positive data which
represent the condensed results of previous research,
which cannot be improvised, and must, therefore, be
learnt. To distinguish a genuine from a spurious
charter would, in fact, be often an impossible task
for the best trained logician, if he were unacquainted
with the practice of such and such a chancery, at
such and such a date, or with the features common
to all the admittedly genuine charters of a particular
class. He would be obliged to do what the first
scholars did — ascertain for himself, by the comparison
of a great number of similar documents, what features
distinguish the admittedly genuine documents from
the others, before allowing himself to pronounce judg-
ment in any special instance. Will not his task be

5o

" Auxiliary Sciences "

enormously simplified if there is in existence a body
of doctrine, a treasury of accumulated observations,
a system of results obtained by workers who have
already made, repeated, and checked the minute com-
parisons he would otherwise have been obliged to
make for himself ? This body of doctrines, observa-
tions, and results, calculated to assist the criticism
of diplomas and charters, does exist; it is called
Diplomatic. We shall, therefore, assign to Diplomatic,
along with Epigraphy, Palaeography, and Philology,
the character of a subject auxiliary to historical
research.

Epigraphy and Paleography, Philology, and Diplo-
matic with its adjuncts (technical Chronology and
Sphragistic) are not the only subjects of study
which subserve historical research. It would be
extremely injudicious to undertake to deal critically
with literary documents on which no critical work
has as yet been done without making oneself familiar
with the results obtained by those who have already
dealt critically with documents of the same class:
the sum of these results forms a department to
itself, which has a name — the History of Literature.1
The critical treatment of illustrative documents,
such as the productions of architecture, sculpture,
and painting, objects of all kinds (arms, dress, utensils,
coins, medals, armorial bearings, and so forth), pre-
supposes a thorough acquaintance with the rules and
observations which constitute Archaeology properly so

1 " Historiography " is a branch of the " History of Literature ; "
it is the sum of the results obtained by the critics who have
hitherto studied ancient historical writings, such as annals, me-
moirs, chronicles, biographies, and so forth.

51

Preliminary Studies

called and its detached branches — Numismatic and
Heraldry.

We are now in a position to examine to some
purpose the hazy notion expressed by the phrase,
" the sciences auxiliary to history." We also read
of " ancillary sciences," and, in French, " sciences
satellites." None of these expressions is really satis-
factory.

First of all, the so-called " auxiliary sciences " are
not all of them sciences. Diplomatic, for example,
and the History of Literature are only systematised
accumulations of facts, acquired by criticism, which
are of a nature to facilitate the application of critical
methods to documents hitherto untouched. On the
other hand, Philology is an organised science, and
has its own laws.

In the second place, among the branches of know-
ledge auxiliary — properly speaking, not to history,
but to historical research — we must distinguish be-
tween those which every worker in the field ought
to master, and those in respect of which he needs
only to know where to look when he has occasion
to make use of them ; between knowledge which
ought to become part of a man's self, and informa-
tion which he may be content to possess only in
potentiality. A medievalist should know how to
read and understand medieval texts ; he would gain
no advantage by accumulating in his memory the
mass of particular facts pertaining to the History
of Literature and Diplomatic which are to be found,
in their proper place, in well-constructed works of
reference.

Lastly, there are no branches of knowledge which
52

" Auxiliary Sciences "

are auxiliary to History (or even historical research)
in general — that is, which are useful to all students
irrespectively of the particular part of history on
which they are engaged.1 It appears, then, that
there is no general answer possible to the question
raised at the beginning of this chapter : in what
should the technical apprenticeship of the scholar
or historian consist ? In what does it consist ?
That depends. It depends on the part of history
he proposes to study. A knowledge of paleo-
graphy is quite useless for the purpose of investi-

1 This is only true under reservation ; there is an instrument of
research which is indispensable to all historians, to all students,
whatever be the subject of their special study. History, moreover,
is here in the same situation as the majority of the other sciences :
all who prosecute original research, of whatever kind, need to
know several living languages, those of countries where men think
and work, of countries which, from the point of view of science,
stand in the forefront of contemporary civilisation.

In our days the cultivation of the sciences is not confined to* any
single country, or even to Europe. It is international. All pro-
blems, the same problems, are being studied everywhere simul-
taneously. It is difficult to-day, and to-morrow it will be impossible,
to find a subject which can be treated without taking cognisance
of works in a foreign language. Henceforth, for ancient history,
Greek and Roman, a knowledge of German will be as imperative as
a knowledge of Greek and Latin. Questions of strictly local history
are the only ones still accessible to those who do not possess the
key to foreign literatures. The great problems are beyond their
reach, for the wretched and ridiculous reason that works on these
problems in any language but their own are sealed books to them.

Total ignorance of the languages which have hitherto been the
ordinary vehicles of science (German, English, French, Italian) is
a disease which age renders incurable. It would not be exacting
too much to require every candidate for a scientific profession to
be at least trilinguis — that is, to be able to understand, fairly easily,
two languages besides his mother-tongue. This is a requirement
to which scholars were not subject formerly, when Latin was still
the common language of learned men, but which the conditions of

53

Preliminary Studies

gating the history of the French Revolution, and a
knowledge of Greek is equally useless for the treat-
ment of a question in mediaeval French history.1
But we may go so far as to say that the preliminary
outfit of every one who wishes to do original work in
history should consist (in addition to the " common
education," that is, general culture, of which Daunou
writes) in the knowledge calculated to aid in the

modern scientific work will henceforth cause to press with increas-
ing weight upon the scholars of every country.*

The French scholars who are unable to read German and English
are thereby placed in a position of permanent inferiority as com-
pared with their better ins meted colleagues in France and abroad ;
whatever their merit, they are condemned to work with insufficient
means of information, to work badly. They know it. They do
their best to hide their infirmity, as something to be ashamed of,
except when they make a cynical parade of it and boast of it ; but
this boasting, as we can easily see, is only shame showing itself in
a different way. Too much stress cannot be laid upon the fact
that a practical knowledge of foreign languages is auxiliary in the
first degree to all historical work, as indeed it is to scientific work
in general.

1 When the "auxiliary sciences" were first inserted in the curri-
cula of French universities, it was observed that some students
whose special subject was the French Revolution, and who had no
interest whatever in the middle ages, took up palaeography as an
"auxiliary science," and that some students of geography, who
were in no way interested in antiquity, took up epigraphy. Evi-
dently they had failed to understand that the study of the " auxi-
liary sciences " is recommended, not as an end in itself, but
because it is of practical utility to those who devote themselves
to certain special subjects. See the Revue universitaire, 1895, "•
p. 123.

* Perhaps a day will come when it will be necessary to know the
most important Slavonic language ; there are already scholars who
are setting themselves to learn Russian. The idea of restoring
Latin to its old position of universal language is chimerical. See
the file of the Phoenix, seu nuntius latinus universalis (London,
1 89 1, 4to).

54

"Auxiliary Sciences"

discovery, the understanding, and the criticism of
documents. The exact nature of this knowledge
varies from case to case according as the student
specialises in one or another part of universal
history. The technical apprenticeship is relatively
short and easy for those who occupy themselves
with modern or contemporary history, long and
laborious for those who occupy themselves with
ancient and inediseval history.

This reform of the historian's technical apprentice-
ship, which consists in substituting the acquisition
of positive knowledge, truly auxiliary to historical
research, for the study of the " great models," lite-
rary and philosophical, is of quite recent date. In
France, for the greater part of the present century,
students of history received none but a literary
education, after Daunou's pattern. Almost all of
them were contented with such a preparation, and
did not look beyond it; some few perceived and
regretted, when it was too late for a remedy, the
insufficiency of their early training; with a few
illustrious exceptions, the best of them never rose
to be more than distinguished men of letters, in-
capable of scientific work. There was at that time
no organisation for teaching the " auxiliary sciences "
and the technique of research except in the case of
French mediaeval history, and that in a special school,
the Nicole des chartes. This simple fact, moreover,
secured for this school during a period of fifty years
a marked superiority over all the other French (or
even foreign) institutions of higher education; ex-
cellent workers were there trained who contributed
many new results, while elsewhere people were idly

55

Preliminary Studies

discussing problems.1 To-day it is still at the ficole
des chartes that the medievalist has the opportunity
of going through his technical apprenticeship in the
best and most complete manner, thanks to the com-
bined and progressive three-years courses of Romance
philology, palaeography, archaeology, historiography,
and mediaeval law. But the " auxiliary sciences " are
now taught everywhere more or less adequately ; they
have been introduced into' the university curricula.
On the other hand, students' handbooks of epigraphy,
palaeography, diplomatic, and so forth, have multi-
plied during the last twenty-five years. Twenty-five
years ago it would have been vain to look for a
good book which should supply the want of oral in-
struction on these subjects ; since the establishment
of professorships " manuals " have appeared 2 which

1 On this point note the opinions of T. von Sickel and J. Havet,
quoted in the Bibliotheque de V Ecole des chartes, 1896, p. 87. In
1854 the Austrian Institute "fur osterreichische Geschichtsfor-
schung " was organised on the model of the French Ecole des chartes.
Another institution of the same type has lately been created in the
" Istituto di studi superiori " at Florence. "We are accustomed,"
we read in England, " to hear the complaint that there is not in this
country any institution resembling the Ecole des chartes " {Quar-
terly Review, July 1896, p. 122).

2 This is a suitable place to enumerate the principal "manuals"
published in the last twenty-five years. But a list of them, ending
at 1894, will be found in Bernheim's Lehrbuch, pp. 206 sqq. We will
only refer to the great "manuals" of "Philology" (in the com-
prehensive sense of the German "Philologie," which includes the
history of language and literature, epigraphy, palaeography, and
all that pertains to textual criticism) now in course of publication :
the Orundriss der indo-arischen Philologie und AltertumsJcunde, edited
by G. Biihler ; the Orundriss der iranischen Philologie, edited by W.
Geiger and E. Kuhn ; the Handbuch der classischen Alterbumswis-
senschaft, edited .by I. von Miiller ; the Grundriss der gcrmanischen
Philologie, edited by H. Paul, the second edition of which began to
appear in 1896 ; the Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, edited

56

" Auxiliary Sciences "

would almost make them superfluous were it not
that oral instruction, based on practical exercises,
has here an exceptional value. Whether a student
does or does not enjoy the advantage of a regular
drilling in an institution for higher education, he has
henceforth no excuse for remaining in ignorance of
those things which he ought to know before entering
upon historical work. There is, in fact, less of this
kind of neglect than there used to be. On this
head, the success of the above-mentioned " manuals,"
with their rapid succession of editions, is very
significant.1

Here, then, we have the future historian armed
with the preliminary knowledge, the neglect of which
would have condemned him to powerlessness or to
continual mistakes. We suppose him protected from
the errors without number which have their origin
in an imperfect knowledge of the writing and the
language of documents, in ignorance of previous work
and the results obtained by textual criticism ; he has
an irreproachable cognitio cogniti et cognoscmdi. A
very optimistic supposition, by the way, as we are
bound to admit. We know but too well that to have
gone through a regular course of " auxiliary sciences,"
or to have read attentively the best treatises on

by G. Grober. In these vast repertories there will be found, along
with a short presentment of the subject, complete bibliographical
references, direct as well as indirect.

1 The French "manuals" of MM. Prou (Palaeography), Giry
(Diplomatic), Cagnat (Latin Epigraphy), and others, have diffused
among the public the idea and knowledge of the auxiliary subjects
of study. New editions have enabled, and will enable, them to be
kept up to date — a very necessary operation, for most of these sub-
jects, though now settled in the main, are being enriched and made
more precise every day. Cf. supr^ p. 38.

57

Preliminary Studies

bibliography, palaeography, philology, and so on, or
even to have acquired some personal experience by
practical exercises, is not enough to ensure that a
man shall always be well informed, still less to make
him infallible. In the first place, those who have
for a long time studied documents of a given class
or of a given period possess, in regard to these,
incommunicable knowledge in virtue of which they
are able to deal better than others with new docu-
ments which they may meet with of the same class
or period ; nothing can replace the "special erudition "
which is the specialist's reward for hard work.1 And
secondly, specialists themselves make mistakes :
palaeographers must be perpetually on their guard
not to decipher falsely; is there a philologist who
has not some faults of construing on his conscience ?
Scholars usually well informed have printed as un-
edited texts which had already been published, and
have neglected documents it was their business to
know. Scholars spend their lives in incessantly
perfecting their " auxiliary " knowledge, which they
rightly regard as never perfect. But all this does

1 What exactly are we to understand by this "incommunicable
knowledge," of which we speak ? When a specialist is very
familiar with the documents of a given class or period, associations
of ideas are formed in his brain ; and when he examines a new
document of the same class or species, analogies suddenly dawn
upon him which would escape any one of less experience, however
well furnished he might be with the most perfect repertories. The
fact is, that not all the peculiarities of documents can be isolated ;
there are some which cannot be classified under any intelligible
head, and which, therefore, cannot be found in any tabulated list.
But the human memory, when it is good, retains the impression of
these peculiarities, and even a faint and distant stimulus suffices
to revive the apprehension of them.

58

" Auxiliary Sciences "

not prevent us from maintaining our hypothesis.
Only let it be understood that in practice we do
not postpone work upon documents till we shall
have gained a serene and absolute mastery over
all the " auxiliary branches of knowledge : " we
should never dare to begin.

It remains to know how to treat documents
supposing one has successfully passed through the
preliminary apprenticeship.

59

BOOK II

ANALYTICAL OPERATIONS

BOOK II

ANALYTICAL OPERATIONS

CHAPTER I

GENERAL CONDITIONS OF HISTORICAL KNOWLEDGE

We have already stated that history is studied from
documents, and that documents are the traces of
past events.1 This is the place to indicate the
consequences involved in this statement and this
definition.

Events can be empirically known in two ways
only: by direct observation while they are in pro-
gress ; and indirectly, by the study of the traces
which they leave behind them. Take an earth-
quake, for example. I have a direct knowledge of
it if I am present when the phenomenon occurs;
an indirect knowledge if, without having been thus
present, I observe its physical effects (crevices,
ruins), or if, after these effects have disappeared,
I read a description written by some one who has
himself witnessed the phenomenon or its effects.
Now, the peculiarity of "historical facts"2 is this,

1 Supra, p. 17.

2 This expression, which frequently occurs, needs explanation.
It is not to be taken to apply to a species of facts. There are no

63

Analytical Opeeations

that they are only known indirectly by the help
of their traces. Historical knowledge is essentially
indirect knowledge. The methods of historical
science ought, therefore, to be radically different
from those of the direct sciences; that is to say,
of all the other sciences, except geology, which are
founded on direct observation. Historical science,
whatever may be said,1 is not a science of observa-
tion at all.

The facts of the past are only known to us by the
traces of them which have been preserved. These
traces, it is true, are directly observed by the his-
torian, but, after that, he has nothing more to
observe ; what remains is the work of reasoning,
in which he endeavours to infer, with the greatest
possible exactness, the facts from the traces. . The
document is his starting-point, the fact his goal.2
Between this starting-point and this goal he has
to pass through a complicated series of inferences,
closely interwoven with each other, in which there
are innumerable chances of error ; while the least
error, whether committed at the beginning, middle,
or end of the work, may vitiate all his conclusions.

historical facts in the sense in which we speak of chemical facts.
The same fact is or is not historical according to the manner in
which it is known. It is only the mode of acquiring knowledge
that is historical. A sitting of the Senate is a fact of direct
observation for one who takes part in it ; it becomes historical
for the man who reads about it in a report. The eruption of
Vesuvius in the time of Pliny is a geological fact which is known
historically. The historical character is not in the facts, but in the
manner of knowing them.

1 Fustel de Coulanges has said it. Cf. supra, p. 4, note 1.

2 In the sciences of observation it is the fact itself, observed
directly, which is the starting-point.

64

General Conditions of Historical Knowledge

The " historical," or indirect, method is thus ob-
viously inferior to the method of direct observation ;
but historians have no choice : it is the only method
of arriving at past facts, and we shall see later on 1
how, in spite of these disadvantages, it is possible
for this method to lead to scientific knowledge.

The detailed analysis of the reasonings which lead
from the inspection of documents to the knowledge
of facts is one of the chief parts of Historical
Methodology. It is the domain of criticism. The
seven following chapters will be devoted to it.
We shall endeavour, first of all, to give a very
summary sketch of the general lines and main
divisions of the subject.

I. We may distinguish two species of documents.
Sometimes the past event has left a material trace
(a monument, a fabricated article). Sometimes, and
more commonly, the trace is of the psychological
order — a written description or narrative. The first
case is much simpler than the second. For there
is a fixed relation between certain physical appear-
ances and the causes which produced them ; and
this relation, governed by physical laws, is known
to us.2 But a psychological trace, on the other
hand, is purely symbolic: it is not the fact itself;
it is not even the immediate impression made by
the fact upon the witness's mind, but only a con-
ventional symbol of that impression. Written
documents, then, are not, as material documents

1 Infra, ch. vii.

2 We shall not treat specially of the criticism of material docu-
ments (objects, monuments, &c.) where it differs from the criticism
of written documents.

65 E

Analytical Operations

are, valuable by themselves ; they are only valuable
as signs of psychological operations, which are often
complicated and hard to unravel. The immense
majority of the documents which furnish the
historian with starting-points for his reasonings
are nothing else than traces of psychological opera-
tions.

This granted, in order to conclude from a written
document to the fact which was its remote cause
— that is, in order to ascertain the relation which
connects the document with the fact — it is necessary
to reproduce the whole series of intermediate causes
which have given rise to the document. It is
necessary to revive in imagination the whole of
that series of acts performed by the author of
the document which begins with the fact observed
by him and ends with the manuscript (or printed
volume), in order to arrive at the original event.
Such is the aim and such the process of critical
analysis.1

First of all we observe the document. Is it now
in the same state as when it was produced ? Has
it deteriorated since ? We endeavour to find out
how it was made in order to restore it, if need
be, to its original form, and to ascertain its origin.
The first group of preliminary investigations, bear-
ing upon the writing, the language, the form, the
source, constitutes the special domain of External
Criticism, or critical scholarship. Next comes
Internal Criticism : it endeavours, by the help of

1 For the details and the logical justification of this method see
Seignobos, Les Conditions psychologiques de la connaissance en histoire,
in the Revue philosophique, 1887, ii. pp. 1, 168.

66

Geneeal Conditions of Historical Knowledge

analogies mostly borrowed from general psychology,
to reproduce the mental states through which the
author of the document passed. Knowing what
the author of the document has said, we ask (i)
What did he mean ? (2) Did he believe what
he said ? (3) Was he justified in believing what-
ever he did believe ? This last step brings the
document to a point where it resembles the data
of the objective sciences : it becomes an observa-
tion; it only remains , to treat it by the methods
of the objective sciences. Every document is valu-
able precisely to the extent to which, by the study
of its origin, it has been reduced to a well-made
observation.

II. Two conclusions may be drawn from what we
have just said : the extreme complexity and the
absolute necessity of Historical Criticism.

Compared with other students the historian is in
a very disagreeable situation. It is not merely that
he cannot, as the chemist does, observe his facts
directly ; it very rarely happens that the documents
which he is obliged to use represent precise observa-
tions. He has at his disposal none of those systematic
records of observations which, in the established
sciences, can and do replace direct observation. He
is in the situation of a chemist who should know a
series of experiments only from the report of his
laboratory-boy. The historian is compelled to turn
to account rough and ready reports, such as no man
of science would be content with.1 All the more

1 The most favourable case, that in which the document has
been drawn up by what is called an ocular " witness," is still far
short of the ideal required for scientific knowledge. The notion

67

Analytical Operations

necessary are the precautions to be taken in utilising
these documents, the only materials of historical
science. It is evidently most important to elimi-
nate those which are worthless, and to ascertain
the amount of correct observation represented by
those which are left.

All the more necessary, too, are cautions on this
subject, because the natural inclination of the human
mind is to take no precautions at all, and to treat
these matters, which really demand the utmost
obtainable precision, with careless laxity. It is true
that every one admits the utility of criticism in
theory; but this is just one of those principles
which are more easily admitted than put into
practice. Many centuries and whole eras of brilliant
civilisation had to pass away before the first dawn
of criticism was visible among the most intellectual
peoples in the world. Neither the orientals nor the
middle ages ever formed a definite conception of it.1
Up to our own day there have been enlightened
men who, in employing documents for the purpose
of writing history, have neglected the most elemen-
tary precautions, and unconsciously assumed false

of witness has been borrowed from the procedure of the law-courts ;
reduced to scientific terms, it becomes that of an observer. A testi-
mony is an observation. But, in point of fact, historical testimony
differs materially from scientific observation. The observer pro-
ceeds by fixed rules, and clothes his report in language of rigorous
precision. On the other hand, the "witness "observes without
method, and reports in unprecise language ; it is not known whether
he has taken the necessary precautions. It is an essential attribute
of historical documents that they come before us as the result of
work which has been done without method and without guarantee.
1 See B. Lasch, Das Erwachen und die Entwickelung der historischen
Kritik im Mittdcdtcr (Breslau, 1887, 8vo).

68

General Conditions of Historical Knowledge

generalisations. Even now most young students
would, if left to themselves, fall into the old errors.
For criticism is antagonistic to the normal bent of
the mind. The spontaneous tendency of man is to
yield assent to affirmations, and to reproduce them,
without even clearly distinguishing them from the
results of his own observation. In everyday life do
we not accept indiscriminately, without any kind of
verification, hearsay reports, anonymous and un-
guaranteed statements, "documents" of indifferent
or inferior authority ? It takes a special reason to
induce us to take the trouble to examine into the
origin and value of a document on the history of
yesterday ; otherwise, if there is no outrageous im-
probability in it, and as long as it is not contradicted,
we swallow it whole, we pin our faith to it, we hawk
it about, and, if need be, embellish it in the process.
Every candid man must admit that it requires
a violent effort to shake off ignavia critica, that
common form of intellectual sloth, that this effort
must be continually repeated, and is often accom-
panied by real pain.

The natural instinct of a man in the water is to
do precisely that which will infallibly cause him to
be drowned; learning to swim means acquiring the
habit of suppressing spontaneous movements and
performing others instead. Similarly, criticism is
not a natural habit ; it must be inculcated, and only
becomes organic by dint of continued practice.

Historical work is, then, pre-eminently critical ;
whoever enters upon it without having first been
put on his guard against his instinct is sure to be
drowned in it. In order to appreciate the danger it

69

Analytical Operations

is well to examine one's conscience and analyse the
causes of that ignavia which must be fought against
till it is replaced by a critical attitude of mind.1 It
is also very salutary to familiarise oneself with the
principles of historical method, and to analyse the
theory of them, one by one, as we propose to do
in the present volume. " History, like every other
study, is chiefly subject to errors of fact arising from
inattention, but it is more exposed than any other
study to errors due to that mental confusion which
produces incomplete analyses and fallacious reason-
ings. . . . Historians would advance fewer affirma-
tions without proof if they had to analyse each one
of their affirmations ; they would commit themselves
to fewer false principles if they made it a rule to
formulate all their principles ; they would be guilty
of fewer fallacies if they were obliged to set out all
their arguments in logical form." 2

1 Natural credulity is deeply rooted in indolence. It is easier to
believe than to discuss, to admit than to criticise, to accumulate
documents than to weigh them. It is also pleasanter; he who
criticises documents must sacrifice some of them, and such a
sacrifice seems a dead loss to the man who has discovered or
acquired the document.

2 Revue philosophique, I.e., p. 178.

70

SECTION I.— EXTERNAL CRITICISM
CHAPTER II

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Let us suppose that an author of our own day has
written a book: he sends his manuscript to the
printer ; with his own hand he corrects the proofs,
and marks them " Press." A book which is printed
under these conditions comes into our hands in what
is, for a document, a very good condition. Whoever
the author may be, and whatever his sentiments and
intentions, we can be certain — and this is the only
point that concerns us at present — that we have
before us a fairly accurate reproduction of the text
which he wrote. We are obliged to say " fairly
accurate," for if the author has corrected his proofs
badly, or if the printers have not paid proper atten-
tion to his corrections, the reproduction of the original
text is imperfect, even in this specially favourable
case. Printers not unfrequently make a man say
something which he never meant to say, and which
he does not notice till too late.

Sometimes it is required to reproduce a work the
author of which is dead, and the autograph manu-
script of which cannot be sent to the printer. This
was the case with the Mdmoires d'outre-tombe of

7i

Analytical Operations

Chateaubriand, for example ; it is of daily occurrence
in regard to the familiar correspondence of well-
known persons which is printed in haste to satisfy
the curiosity of the public, and of which the original
manuscript is very fragile. First the text is copied ;
it is then set up by the compositor from the copy,
which comes to the same thing as copying it again ;
this second copy is lastly, or ought to be, collated
(in the proofs) with the first copy, or, better still,
with the original, by some one who takes the place
of the deceased author. The guarantees of accuracy
are fewer in this case than in the first ; for between
the original and the ultimate reproduction there is
one intermediary the more (the manuscript copy),
and it may be that the original is hard for anybody
but the author to decipher. And, in fact, the text
of memoirs and posthumous correspondence is often
disfigured by errors of transcription and punctuation
occurring in editions which at first sight give the
impression of having been carefully executed.1

Turning now to ancient documents, let us ask in
what^ state they have been preserved. In nearly
every case the originals have been lost, and we have
nothing but copies. Have these copies been made
directly from the originals ? No ; they are copies
of copies. The scribes who executed them were not
by any means all of them capable and conscientious

1 A member of the SociiU des humanistes franqais (founded at
Paris in 1894) amused himself by pointing out, in. the Bulletin of
this society, certain errors amenable to verbal criticism which
occur in various editions of posthumous works, especially the
Mtmoires d'outre-tombe. He showed that it is possible to remove
obscurities in the most modern documents by the same methods
which are used in restoring ancient texts.

72

Textual Criticism

men; they often transcribed texts which they did
not understand at all, or which they understood
incorrectly, and it was not always the fashion, as it
was in the time of the Carlovingian Renaissance, to
compare the copies with the originals.1

If our printed books, after the successive revisions
of author and printers reader, are still but imperfect
reproductions, it is only to be expected that ancient
documents, copied and recopied as they have been
for centuries with very little care, and exposed at
every fresh transcription to new risk of alteration,
should have reached us full of inaccuracies.

There is thus an obvious precaution to be taken.
Before using a document we must find out whether
its text is " sound" — that is, in as close agreement as
possible with the original manuscript of the author ;
and when the text is " corrupt " we must emend
it. In using a text which has been corrupted in
transmission, we run the risk of attributing to the
author what really comes from the copyists. There
are actual cases of theories which were based on
passages falsified in transmission, and which collapsed
as soon as the true readings were discovered or re-
stored. Printers' errors and mistakes in copying are
not always innocuous or merely diverting ; they are
sometimes insidious and capable of misleading the
reader.2

One would naturally suppose that historians of

1 On the habits of the mediaeval copyists, by whose intermediate
agency most of the literary works of antiquity have come down to
us, see the notices collected by W. Wattenbach, Das Schriftwesen
im Mittelalter, 3rd ed. (Berlin, 1896, 8vo).

2 See, for example, the Coquilles lexicographiques which have been
collected by A. Thomas, in Romania, xx. (1891), pp. 464 sqq.

73

Analytical Operations

repute would always make it a rule to procure
" sound " texts, properly emended and restored, of
the texts they have to consult. That is a mistake.
For a long time historians simply used the texts
which they had within easy reach, without verifying
their accuracy. And, what is more, the very scholars
whose business it is to edit texts did not discover
the art of restoring them all at once ; not so very
long ago, documents were commonly edited from the
first copies, good or bad, that came to hand, com-
bined and corrected at random. Editions of ancient
texts are nowadays mostly " critical ; " but it is not
yet thirty years since the publication of the first
" critical editions " of the great works of the middle
ages, and the critical text of some ancient classics
(Pausanias, for example) has still to be constructed.

Not all historical documents have as yet been
published in a form calculated to give historians the
security they need, and some historians still act as
if they had not realised that an unsettled text, as
such, requires cautious handling. Still, considerable
progress has been made. From the experience
accumulated by several generations of scholars there
has been evolved a recognised method of purifying
and restoring texts. No part of historical method
has a more solid foundation, or is more generally
known. It is clearly explained in several works of
popular philology.1 For this reason we shall here
be content to give a general view of its essential
principles, and to indicate its results.

1 See E. Bernheim, Lehrbuch der historischen Methode, 2nd ed., pp.
341-54. Also consult F. Blass, in the Handbuch der klassischcn
Altertumswissenschqft, edited by I. von Muller, I., 2nd ed. (1892), pp.

74

Textual Criticism

I. We will suppose a document has not been
edited in conformity with critical rules. How are
we to proceed in order to construct the best possible
text ? Three cases present themselves.

(a) The most simple case is that in which we pos-
sess the original, the author's autograph itself. There
is then nothing to do but to reproduce the text
of it with absolute fidelity.1 Theoretically nothing
can be easier ; in practice this elementary operation
demands a sustained attention of which not every
one is capable. If any one doubts it, let him try
Copyists who never make mistakes and never allow
their attention to be distracted are rare even amous:
scholars.

(b) Second case. The original has been lost ; only

249-89 (with a detailed bibliography) ; A. Tobler, in the Grundriss
der romanischen Philologie, I. (1888), pp. 253-63; H. Paul, in the
Grundriss der germanischen Philologie, I., 2nd ed. (1896), pp. 184-96.

In French read the section Critique des textes, in Minerva, Intro-
duction a Vitude des classiques scolaires grecs et latins, by J. Gow and
S. Reinach (Paris, 1890, i6mo), pp. 50-65.

The work of J. Taylor, " History of the Transmission of Ancient
Books to Modern Times" (Liverpool, 1889, i6mo), is of no value.

1 This rule is not absolute. The editor is generally accorded the
right of unifying the spelling of an autograph document — provided
that he informs the public of the fact — wherever, as in most modern
documents, the orthographical vagaries of the author possess no
philological interest. See the Instructions pour la publication des
textes historiques, in the Bulletin de la Commission royale d'kistoire de
Belgique, 5th series, vi. (1896) ; and the Grundsdtze fur die Herausgube
von ActenstilcTcen zur neueren Geschichte, laboriously discussed by the
second and third Congresses of German historians, in 1894 and 1895,
in the Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswisscnschaft, xi. p. 200, xii.
p. 364. The last Congresses of Italian historians, held at Genoa
(1893) an^ at Rome (1895), have also debated this question, but
without result. What are the liberties which it is legitimate to
take in reproducing autograph texts ? The question is more diffi-
cult than is imagined by those who are not professionally concerned
with it.

75

Analytical Operations

a single copy of it is known. It is necessary to be
cautious, for the probability is that this copy con-
tains errors.

Texts degenerate in accordance with certain laws.
A great deal of pains has been taken to discover and
classify the causes and the ordinary forms of the
differences which are observed between originals and
copies; and hence rules have been deduced which
may be applied to the conjectural restoration of
those passages in a unique copy of a lost original
which are certainly corrupt (because unintelligible),
or are so in all probability.

Alterations of an original occurring in a copy —
" traditional variants," as they are called — are due
either to fraud or to error. Some copyists have
deliberately modified or suppressed passages.1 Nearly
all copyists have committed errors of judgment or
accidental errors. Errors of judgment when half-
educated and not wholly intelligent copyists have
thought it their duty to correct passages and words
in the original which they could not understand.2
Accidental errors when they misread while copying,
or misheard while writing from dictation, or when
they involuntarily made slips of the pen.

Modifications arising from fraud or errors of judg-
ment are often very difficult to rectify, or even to
discover. Some accidental errors (the omission of
several lines, for example) are irreparable in the

1 Interpolations will be treated of in chapter iii. p. 92.

2 The scribes of the Carlovingian Renaissance and of the
Renaissance proper of the fifteenth century endeavoured to furnish
intelligible texts. They therefore corrected everything they did
not understand. Several ancient works have been in this manner
irretrievably ruined.

76

Textual Criticism

case we are considering, that of a unique copy. But
most accidental errors can be detected by any one
who knows the ordinary forms : confusions of sense,
letters, and words, transpositions of words, letters,
and syllables, dittography (unmeaning repetition of
letters or syllables), haplography (syllables or words
written once only where they should have been
written twice), false divisions between words, badly
punctuated sentences, and other mistakes of the
same kind. Errors of these various types have been
made by the scribes of every country and every age,
irrespectively of the handwriting and language of the
originals. But some confusions of letters occur fre-
quently in copies of uncial originals, and others in
copies of minuscule originals. Confusions of sense
and of words are explained by analogies of vocabulary
or pronunciation, which naturally vary from language
to language and from epoch to epoch. The general
theory of conjectural emendation reduces to the sketch
we have just given ; there is no general apprentice-
ship to the art. What a man learns is not to restore
any text that may be put before him, but Greek
texts, Latin texts, French texts, and so on, as the
case may be; for the conjectural emendation of a
text presupposes, besides general notions on the
processes by which texts degenerate, a profound
knowledge of (i) a special language; (2) a special
handwriting ; (3) the confusions (of sense , letters, and
words) ivhich were habitual to those who copied texts of
that language written in that style of handwriting. To
aid in the apprenticeship to the conjectural emenda-
tion of Greek and Latin texts, tabulated lists (alpha-
betical and systematic) of various readings, frequent

77

Analytical Operations

confusions, and probable corrections, have been drawn
up.1 It is true that they cannot take the place of
practical work, done under the guidance of experts,
but they are of very great use to the experts
themselves.2

It would be easy to give a list of happy emen-
dations. The most satisfactory are those whose
correctness is obvious palseographically, as is the
case with the classical emendation by Madvig of
the text of Seneca's Letters (89, 4). The old read-
ing was : " Philosophia unde dicta sit, apparet ; ipso
enim nomine fatetur. Quidam et sapientiam ita
quidam finierunt, ut dicerent divinorum et huruan-
orum sapientiam . . ." — which does not make sense.
It used to be supposed that words had dropped
out between ita and quidam, Madvig pictured to
himself the text of the lost archetype, which was
written in capitals, and in which, as was usual
before the eighth century, the words were not
separated (scriptio continue/,), nor the sentences punc-
tuated ; he asked himself whether the copyist, with
such an archetype before him, had not divided
the words at random, and he had no difficulty

1 The principal of these are, for the classical languages, besides
the above-mentioned work of Blass (supra, p. 74, note), the Adver-
saria critica of Madvig (Copenhagen, 1871-74, 3 vols. 8vo). For
Greek, the celebrated Commentatio palaographica of F. J. Bast, pub-
lished as an appendix to an edition of the grammarian Gregory
of Corinth (Leipzig, 181 1, 8vo), and the Variaz lectiones of Cobet
(Leiden, 1873, 8vo). For Latin, H. Hagen, Gradus ad criticcn
(Leipzig, 1879, 8vo), and W. M. Lindsay, "An Introduction to Latin
Textual Emendation based on the Text of Plautus " (London, 1896,
i6mo). A contributor to the Bulletin de la Societe des humanistes
francais has expressed, in this publication, a wish that a similar
collection might be compiled for modern French.

2 Cf. Revue Critique, 1895, ii. p. 358.

78

Textual Criticism

in reading : " . . . ipso enim nomine fatetur quid
amet. Sapientiam ita quidam finierunt . . ." Blass,
Reinach, and Lindsay, in the works referred to in
the note, mention several other masterly and elegant
emendations. Nor have the Hellenists and Latinists
any monopoly ; equally brilliant emendations might
be culled from the works of Orientalists, Romancists,
and Germanists, now that texts of Oriental, Romance,
and Germanic languages have been subjected to
verbal criticism. We have already stated that
scholarly corrections are possible even in the text
of quite modern documents, reproduced typographi-
cally under the most favourable conditions.

Perhaps no one, in our day, has equalled Madvig
in the art of conjectural emendation. But Madvig
himself had no high opinion of the work of modern
scholarship. He thought that the humanists of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were, in
this respect, better trained than modern scholars.
The conjectural emendation of Greek and Latin
texts is, in fact, a branch of sport success in which
is proportionate not only to a man's ingenuity and
palseographical instinct, but also to the corrrectness,
rapidity, and delicacy of his appreciation of the
niceties of the classical languages. Now, the early
scholars were undoubtedly too bold, but they were
more intimately familiar with the classical languages
than our modern scholars are.

However that may be, there can be no doubt
that numerous texts which have been preserved, in
corrupt form, in unique copies, have resisted, and
will continue to resist, the efforts of criticism. Very
often criticism ascertains the fact of the text having

79

Analytical Operations

been altered, states what the sense requires, and
then prudently stops, every trace of the original
reading having been obscured by a confused tangle
of successive corrections and errors which it is
hopeless to attempt to unravel. The scholars who
devote themselves to the fascinating pursuit of con-
jectural criticism are liable, in their ardour, to
suspect perfectly innocent readings, and, in desperate
passages, to propose adventurous hypotheses. They
are well aware of this, and therefore make it a rule
to draw a very clear distinction, in their editions,
between readings found in manuscripts and their
own restorations of the text.

(c) Third case. We possess several copies, which
differ from, each other, of a document whose original
is lost. Here modern scholars have a marked
advantage over their predecessors: besides being
better informed, they set about the comparison of
copies more methodically. The object is, as in
the preceding case, to reconstruct the archetype as
exactly as possible.

The scholars of earlier days had to struggle, as
novices have to struggle now, in a case of this kind,
against a very natural and a very reprehensible
impulse — to use the first copy that comes to hand,
whatever its character may happen to be. The
second impulse is not much better — to use the
oldest copy out of several of different date. In
theory, and very often in practice, the relative age
of the copies is of no importance ; a sixteenth-
century manuscript which reproduces a good lost
copy of the eleventh century is much more valu-
able than a faulty and retouched copy made in the

80

Textual Criticism

twelfth or thirteenth century. The third impulse
is still far from being good ; it is to count the
attested readings and decide by the majority. Sup-
pose there are twenty copies of a text ; the reading
A is attested eighteen times, the reading B twice.
To make this a reason for choosing A is to make the
gratuitous assumption that all the manuscripts have
the same authority. This is an error of judgment ;
for if seventeen of the eighteen manuscripts which
give the reading A have been copied from the
eighteenth, the reading A is in reality attested only
once ; and the only question is whether it is intrinsi-
cally better or worse than the reading B.

It has been recognised that the only rational pro-
cedure is to begin by determining in what relation
the copies stand to each other. For this purpose
we adopt as our starting-point the incontrovertible
axiom that all the copies which contain the same
mistakes in the same passages must have been either
copied from each other or all derived from a copy
containing those mistakes. It is inconceivable that
several copyists, independently reproducing an original
free from errors, should all introduce exactly the
same errors ; identity of errors attests community of
origin. We shall cast aside without scruple all the
copies derived from a single manuscript which has
been preserved. Evidently they can have no value
beyond what is possessed by their common source ;
if they differ from it, it can only be in virtue of new
errors; it would be waste of time to study their
variations. Having eliminated these, we have before
us none but independent copies, which have been
made directly from the archetype, or secondary

81 F

Analytical Operations

copies whose source (a copy taken directly from the
archetype) has been lost. In order to group the
secondary copies into families, each of which shall
represent what is substantially the same tradition,
we again have recourse fro the comparison of errors.
By this method we can generally draw up without
too much trouble a complete genealogical table
(stemma codicum) of the preserved copies, which will
bring out very clearly their relative importance.
This is not the place to discuss the difficult cases
where, in consequence of too great a number of inter-
mediaries having been lost, or from ancient copyists
having arbitrarily blended the texts of different tradi-
tions, the operation becomes extremely laborious or
impracticable. Besides, in these extreme cases there
is no new method involved : the comparison of corre-
sponding passages is a powerful instrument, but it is
the only one which criticism has at its disposal for
this task.

When the genealogical tree of the manuscripts
has been drawn up, we endeavour to restore the text
of the archetype by comparing the different tradi-
tions. If these agree and give a satisfactory text,
there is no difficulty. If they differ, we decide be-
tween them. If they accidentally agree in giving
a defective text, we have recourse to conjectural
emendation, as if there were only one copy.

It is, theoretically, much more advantageous to
have several independent copies of a lost original
than to have only one, for the mere mechanical com-
parison of the different readings is often enough
to remove obscurities which the uncertain light of
conjectural criticism would never have illuminated.

82

Textual Criticism

However, an abim dance of manuscripts is an em-
barrassment rather than a help when the work of
grouping them has been left undone or done badly ;
nothing can be more unsatisfactory than the arbitrary
and hybrid restorations which are founded on copies
whose relations to each other and to the archetype
have not been ascertained beforehand. On the other
hand, the application of rational methods requires, in
some cases, a formidable expenditure of time and
labour. Some works are preserved in hundreds of
copies all differing from each other ; sometimes
(as in the case of the Gospels) the variants of a
text of quite moderate extent are to be counted
by thousands ; several years of assiduous labour are
necessary for the preparation of a critical edition of
some mediaeval romances. And after all this labour,
all these collations and comparisons, can we be sure
that the text of the romance is sensibly better than
it would have been if there had been only two
or three manuscripts to work upon ? No. Some
critical editions, owing to the apparent wealth of
material applicable to the work, demand a mechanical
effort which is altogether out of proportion to the
positive results which are its reward.

" Critical editions " founded on several copies of a
lost original ought to supply the public with the means
of verifying the " stemma codicum " which the editor
has drawn up, and should give the rejected variants in
the notes. By this means competent readers are, at
the worst, put in possession, if not of the best possible
text, at least of the materials for constructing it.1

1 Quite recently our scholars used to neglect this elementary
precaution, in order, as they said, to avoid an " air of pedantry."

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Analytical Operations

II. The results of textual criticism — a kind of
cleaning and mending — are purely negative. By the
aid of conjecture, or by the aid of conjecture and
comparison combined, we are enabled to construct,
not necessarily a good text, but the best text pos-
sible, of documents whose original is lost. What
we thus effect is the elimination of corrupt and
adventitious readings likely to cause error, and the
recognition of suspected passages as such. But it is
obvious that no new information is supplied by this
process. The text of a document which has been
restored at the cost of infinite pains is not worth
more than that of a document whose original has
been preserved; on the contrary, it is worth less.
If the autograph manuscript of the iEneid had not
been destroyed, centuries of collation and conjecture
would have been saved, and the text of the iEneid
would have been better than it is. This is intended
for those who excel at the " emendation game," 1
who are in consequence fond of it, and would really
be sorry to have no occasion to play it.

III. There will, however, be abundant scope for
textual criticism as long as we do not possess the

M. B. Haureau has published, in his Notices et extraits de quelques
manuscrits latins de la Bibliotheque nationale (vi. p. 310), a piece of
rhythmic verse, "De presbytero et logico." "It is not unedited,"
says he ; " Thomas Wright has already published it. . . . But this
edition is very defective ; the text is occasionally quite unintelligible.
We have, therefore, considerably amended it, making use, for this
purpose, of two copies, which, it must be conceded, are neither
of them faultless. . . ." The edition follows, with no variants.
Verification is impossible.

1 " Textual emendation too often misses the mark through want
of knowledge of what may be called the rides of the game" (W. M.
Lindsay, p. v. in the work referred to above).

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Textual Criticism

exact text of every historical document. In the
present state of science few labours are more useful
than those which bring new texts to light or im-
prove texts already known. It is a real service to
the study of history to publish unedited or badly
edited texts in a manner conformable to the rules
of criticism. In every country learned societies
without number are devoting the greater part of
their resources and activity to this important work.
But the immense number of the texts to be criti-
cised,1 and the minute care required by the opera-
tions of verbal criticism,2 prevent the work of

1 It has often been asked whether all texts are worth the trouble
of "establishing" and publishing them. "Among our ancient
texts," says M. J. Bddier, referring to French mediaeval literature,
" which ought we to publish ? Every one. But, it will be asked,
are we not already staggering under the weight of documents ?
. . . The following is the reason why publication should be ex-
haustive. As long as we are confronted by this mass of sealed and
mysterious manuscripts, they will appeal to us as if they contained
the answer to every riddle ; every candid mind will be hampered
by them in its flights of induction. It is desirable to publish them,
if only to get rid of them and to be able, for the future, to work
as if they did not exist. . . ." (Revue des Deux Mondes, February
15, 1894, p. 910). All documents ought to be catalogued, as we
have already pointed out (p. 31), in order that researchers may be
relieved of the fear that there may be documents, useful for their
purposes, of which they know nothing. But in every case where
a summary analysis of a document can give a sufficient idea of its
contents, and its form is of no special interest, there is nothing
gained by publishing it in extenso. We need not overburden our-
selves. Every document will be analysed some day, but many
documents will never be published.

2 Editors of texts often render their task still longer and more
difficult than it need be by undertaking the additional duty of
commentators, under the pretext of explaining the text. It would
be to their advantage to spare themselves this labour, and to dis-
pense with all annotation which does not belong to the "apparatus
criticus " proper. See, on this point, T. Lindner, Ueber die Heraus-

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Analytical Operations

publication and restoration from advancing at any
but a slow pace. Before all the texts which are of
interest for mediaeval and modern history shall have
been edited or re-edited secundum artem, a long
period must elapse, even supposing that the rela-
tively rapid pace of the last few years should be
still further accelerated.1

gabe von geschichtlichen Quellen, in the Mitiheilungcn dcs Instituts ficr
bsterreicJiische Geschichtsforschung, xvi., 1 895, pp. 501 sqq.

1 To realise this it is enough to compare what has hitherto been
done by the most active societies, such as the Society of the Monu-
menta Germanise historica and the Istituto storlco italiano, with what
still remains for them to do. The greater part of the most ancient
documents and the hardest to restore, which have long taxed the
ingenuity of scholars, have now been placed in a relatively satis-
factory condition. But an immense amount of mechanical work
has still to be done.

86

CHAPTER III

CRITICAL INVESTIGATION OF AUTHORSHIP

It would be absurd to look for information about a
fact in the papers of some one who knew nothing,
and could know nothing, about it. The first ques-
tions, then, which we ask when we are confronted
with a document is : Where does it come from ?
who is the author of it ? what is its date ? A
document in respect of which we necessarily are in
total ignorance of the author, the place, and the
date is good for nothing.

This truth, which seems elementary, has only
been adequately recognised in our own day. Such
is the natural aicpicria of man, that those who were
the first to make a habit of inquiring into the
authorship of documents prided themselves, and
justly, on the advance, they had made.

Most modern documents contain a precise indica-
tion of their authorship : in our days, books, news-
paper articles, official papers, and even private
writings, are, in general, dated and signed. Many
ancient documents, on the other hand, are anony-
mous, without date, and have no sufficient indication
of their place of origin.

The spontaneous tendency of the human mind is
to place confidence in the indications of author-
ship, when there are any. On the cover and in the

87

Analytical Operations

preface of the Chdtiments, Victor Hugo is named as
the author ; therefore Victor Hugo is the author of
the Chdtiments. In such and such a picture gallery
we see an unsigned picture whose frame has been
furnished by the management with a tablet bearing
the name of Leonardo da Vinci ; therefore Leonardo
da Vinci painted this picture. A poem with the
title Philomena is found under the name of Saint
Bonaventura in M. Clement's Extraits des pontes
chre'tiens, in most editions of Saint Bonaventura's
" works," and in a great number of mediaeval manu-
scripts ; therefore Philomena was written by Saint
Bonaventura, and "we may gather thence much
precious knowledge of the very soul " of this holy
man.1 Vrain-Lucas offered to M. Chasles auto-
graphs of Vercingetorix, Cleopatra, and Saint Mary
Magdalene, duly signed, and with the nourishes
complete : 2 here, thought M. Chasles, are auto-
graphs of Vercingetorix, Cleopatra, and Saint Mary
Magdalene. This is one of the most universal, and
at the same time indestructible, forms of public
credulity.

Experience and reflection have shown the neces-
sity of methodically checking these instinctive
impulses of confiding trust. The autographs of
Vercingetorix, Cleopatra, and Mary Magdalene had
been manufactured by Vrain-Lucas. The Philomena,
attributed by mediaeval scribes now to Saint Bona-
ventura, now to Louis of Granada, now to John
Hoveden, now to John Peckham, is perhaps by none

1 R. de Gourmont, Le Latin mystique (Paris, 1891, 8vo), p. 258.

2 See these alleged autographs in the Bibliotheque nationale,
nouv. acq. fr., No. 709.

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Critical Investigation of Authorship

of these authors, and certainly not by the first-
named. Paintings in which there is not the least
gleam of talent have, in the most celebrated galleries
of Italy, been tricked out, without the least shadow
of proof, with the glorious name of Leonardo. On
the other hand, it is perfectly true that Victor Hugo
is the author of the Chdtiments. The conclusion is,
that the most precise indications of authorship are
never sufficient by themselves. They only afford a
presumption, strong or weak — very strong, in general,
where modern documents are concerned, often very
weak in the case of ancient documents. False
indications of authorship exist, some foisted upon
insignificant works in order to enhance their value,
some appended to works of merit in order to serve
the reputation of a particular person, or to mystify
posterity; and there are a hundred other motives
which may easily be imagined, and of which a
list has been drawn up:1 the " pseudepigraphic "
literature of antiquity and the middle ages is enor-
mous. There are, in addition, documents which are
forged from beginning to end; the forgers have
naturally furnished them with very precise indica-
tions of their alleged authorship. Verification is
therefore necessary. But how is it to be had ?
When the apparent authorship of a document is
suspected, we use for its verification the same
method which serves to fix, as far as possible, the
origin of documents which are furnished with no
indications at all on this head. As the procedure

1 F. Blass has enumerated the chief of these motives with refer-
ence to the pseudepigraphic literature of antiquity (pp. 269 sqq. in
the work already quoted).

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Analytical Operations

is the same in both cases, it is not necessary to dis-
tinguish further between them.

I. The chief instrument used in the investigation
of authorship is the internal analysis of the docu-
ment under consideration, performed with a view to
bring out any indications it may contain of a nature
to supply information about the author, and the
time and place in which he lived.

First of all we examine the handwriting of the
document. Saint Bonaventura was born in 1221 ;
if poems attributed to him are contained in manu-
scripts executed in the eleventh century, we have in
this circumstance an excellent proof that the attri-
bution is ill-founded : no document of which there
exists a copy in eleventh-century handwriting can
be posterior in date to the eleventh century. Then
we examine the language. It is known that certain
forms have only been used in certain places and at
certain dates. Most forgers have betrayed them-
selves by ignorance of facts of this kind ; they let
slip modern words or phrases. It has been possible
to establish the fact that certain Phoenician inscrip-
tions, found in South America, were earlier than a
certain German dissertation on a point of Phoenician
syntax. In the case of official instruments we
examine the formulae. If a document which pur-
ports to be a Merovingian charter does not exhibit
the ordinary formulae of genuine Merovingian
charters it must be spurious. Lastly, we note all
the positive data which occur in the document —
the facts which are mentioned or alluded to. When
these facts are otherwise known, from sources which
a forger could not have had at his disposal, the

90

Critical Investigation of Authorship

bona fides of the document is established, and the
date fixed approximately between the most recent
event of which the author shows knowledge, and
the next following event which he does not mention
but would have done if he had known of it. Argu-
ments may also be founded on the circumstance
that particular facts are mentioned with approval, or
particular opinions expressed, and help us to make
a conjectural estimate of the status, the environ-
ment, and the character of the author.

When the internal analysis of a document is care-
fully performed, it generally gives us a tolerably
accurate notion of its authorship. By means of a
methodical comparison, instituted between the various
elements of the documents analysed and the cor-
responding elements of similar documents whose
authorship was known with certainty, the detection
of many a forgery * has been rendered possible, and
additional information acquired about the circum-
stances under which most genuine documents have
been produced.

The results obtained by internal analysis are sup-
plemented and verified by collecting all the external
evidence relative to the document under criticism
which can be found scattered over the documents
of the same or later epochs — quotations, biographical
details about the author, and so on. Sometimes

1 E. Bernheim (Lehrbuch, pp. 243 sqq.) gives a somewhat lengthy-
list of spurious documents, now recognised as such. Here it will
be enough to recall a few famous hoaxes : Sarchoniathon, Clotilde
de Surville, Ossian. Since the publication of Bernheim's book
several celebrated documents, hitherto exempt from suspicion, have
been struck off the list of authorities. See especially A. Piaget,
La Chronique des chanoines de Neuchdtel (Neuchatel, 1896, 8vo).

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Analytical Operations

there is a significant absence of any such informa-
tion : the fact that an alleged Merovingian charter
has not been quoted by anybody before the seven-
teenth century, and has only been seen by a seven-
teenth-century scholar who has been convicted of
fraud, suggests the thought that it is modern.

II. Hitherto we have considered only the simplest
case, in which the document under examination is
the work of a single author. But many documents
have, at different times, received additions which it
is important to distinguish from the original text, in
order that we may not attribute to X, the author
of the text, what really belongs to Y or Z, his
unforeseen collaborators.1 There are two kinds of
additions — interpolations and continuations. To in-
terpolate is to insert into the text words or sen-
tences which were not in the author's manuscript.2
Usually interpolations are accidental, due to the
negligence of the copyist, and explicable as the
introduction into the text of interlinear glosses or
marginal notes; but there are cases where some
one has deliberately added to (or substituted for)
the author's text words or sentences out of his own
head, for the sake of completeness, ornament, or
emphasis. If we had before us the manuscript in
which the deliberate interpolation was made, the
appearance of the added matter and the traces of
erasure would make the case clear at once. But
the first interpolated copy has nearly always been

1 When the modifications of the primitive text are the work of
the author himself, they are " alterations." Internal analysis, and
the comparison of different editions, bring them to light.

2 See F. Blass, ibid., pp. 254 sqq.

92

Critical Investigation of Authorship

lost, and in the copies derived from it every trace of
addition or substitution has disappeared. There is
no need to define " continuations." It is well known
that many chronicles of the middle ages have been
" continued " by various writers, none of whom took
the trouble to indicate where his own work began
or ended.

Sometimes interpolations and continuations can
be very readily distinguished in the course of the
operations for restoring a text of which there are
several copies, when it so happens that some of these
copies reproduce the primitive text as it was before
any addition was made to it. But if all the copies
are founded on previous copies which already con-
tained the interpolations or continuations, recourse
must be had to internal analysis. Is the style
uniform throughout the document ? Does the book
breathe one and the same spirit from cover to cover ?
Are there no contradictions, no gaps in the sequence
of ideas ? In practice, when the continuators or in-
terpolators have been men of well-marked personality
and decided views, analysis will separate the original
from the additions as cleanly as a pair of scissors.
When the whole is written in a level, colourless style,
the lines of division are not so easy to see ; it is then
better to confess the fact than to multiply hypotheses.

III. The critical investigation of authorship is
not finished as soon as a document has been
accurately or approximately localised in space and
time, and as much information as possible obtained
about the author or authors.1 Here is a book : we

1 As a rule it matters little whether the name of the author has
or lias not been discovered. We read, however, in the Histoire

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Analytical Operations

wish to ascertain the origin of the information con-
tained in it, that is, to be in a position to appreciate
its value ; is it enough to know that it was written
in 1890, at Paris, by So-and-so? Perhaps So-and-so
copied slavishly, without mentioning the fact, an
earlier work, written in 1850. The responsible
guarantor of the borrowed parts is not So-and-so,
but the author of 1850. Plagiarism, it is true, is
now rare, forbidden by the law, and considered dis-
honourable ; formerly it was common, tolerated, and
unpunished. Many historical documents, with every
appearance of originality, are nothing but unavowed
repetitions of earlier documents, and historians occa-
sionally experience, in this connection, remarkable
disillusions. Certain passages in Eginhard, a ninth-
century chronicler, are borrowed from Suetonius:
they have nothing to do with the history of the
ninth century; how if the fact had not been dis-
covered ? An' event is attested three times, by three
chroniclers; but these three attestations, which agree
so admirably, are really only one if it is ascertained
that two of the three chroniclers copied the third,
or that the three parallel accounts have been drawn
from one and the same source. Pontifical letters
and Imperial charters of the middle ages contain
eloquent passages which must not be taken seriously ;
they are part of the official style, and were copied
word for word from chancery formularies.

It belongs to the investigation of authorship to

litleraire de la France (xxvi. p. 388) : " We have ignored anonymous
sermons : writings of this facile character are of no importance for
literary history when their authors are unknown." Are they of
any more importance when we know the authors' names ?

94

Critical Investigation of Authorship

discover, as far as possible, the sources utilised by
the authors of documents.

The problem thus presented to us has some
resemblance to that of the restoration of texts of
which we have already spoken. In both cases we
proceed on the assumption that identical readings
have a common source : a number of different scribes,
in transcribing a text, will not make exactly the
same mistakes in exactly the same places; a number
of different writers, relating the same facts, will not
have viewed them from exactly the same stand-
point, nor will they say the same things in exactly
the same language. The great complexity of his-
torical events makes it extremely improbable that
two independent observers should narrate them in
the same manner. We endeavour to group the
documents into families in the same way as we
make families of manuscripts. Similarly, we are
enabled in the result to draw up genealogical tables.
The examiners who correct the compositions of can-
didates for the bachelor's degree sometimes notice
that the papers of two candidates who sat next
each other bear a family likeness. If they have a
mind to find out which is derived from the other,
they have no difficulty in doing so, in spite of the
petty artifices (slight modifications, expansions, ab-
stracts, additions, suppressions, transpositions) which
the plagiarist multiplies in order to throw suspicion
off the scent. The two guilty ones are sufficiently
betrayed by their common errors ; the more culpable
of the two is detected by the slips he will have
made, and especially by the errors in his own
papers which are due to peculiarities in those of

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Analytical Opekations

his accommodating friend. Similarly when two
ancient documents are in question : when the
author of one has copied directly from the other,
the filiation is generally easy to establish ; the pla-
giarist, whether he abridges or expands, nearly always
betrays himself sooner or later.1

When there are three documents in a family
their mutual relationships are sometimes harder to
specify. Let A, B, and C be the documents.
Suppose A is the common source : perhaps B and
C copied it independently ; perhaps C only knew
A through the medium of B, or B knew it only
through C. If B and C have abridged the common
source in different ways, they are evidently inde-
pendent. When B depends on C, or vice versa,
we have the simplest case, treated in the preceding
paragraph. But suppose the author of C combined
A and B, while B had already used A : the genealogy
begins to get complicated. It is more complicated
still when there are four, five, or more documents
in a family, for the number of possible combina-
tions increases with great rapidity. However, if too
many intermediate links have not been lost, criti-
cism succeeds in disentangling the relationships by
persistent and ingenious applications of the method
of repeated comparisons. Modern scholars (Krusch,
for example, who has made a speciality of Mero-
vingian hagiography) have recently constructed, by

1 In very favourable cases the examination of the plagiarist's
mistakes has made it possible to determine even this style of
handwriting, the size, and the manner of arrangement of the
manuscript source. The deductions of the investigation of sources,
like those of textual criticism, are sometimes supported by obvious
palseographical considerations.

96

Critical Investigation of Authorship

the use of this method, precise genealogies of the
utmost solidity.1 The results of the critical in-
vestigation of authorship, as applied to the filiation
of documents, are of two kinds. Firstly, lost docu-
ments are reconstructed. Suppose two chroniclers,
B and C, have used, each in his own way, a common
source X, which has now disappeared. We may
form an idea of X by piecing together the fragments
of it which occur imbedded in B and C, just as we
form an idea of a lost manuscript by comparing the
partial copies of it which have been preserved. On
the other hand, criticism destroys the authority of a
host of " authentic " documents — that is, documents
which no one suspects of having been falsified — by
showing that they are derivative, that they are worth
whatever their sources may be worth, and that, when
•they embellish their sources with imaginary details
and rhetorical flourishes, they are worth just nothing
at all. In Germany and England editors of docu-
ments have introduced the excellent system of
printing borrowed passages in small characters, and
original passages whose source is unknown in larger
characters. Thanks to this system it is possible to
see at a glance that celebrated chronicles, which are
often (very wrongly) quoted, are mere compilations,
of no value in themselves : thus the Flores historiarum
of the self-styled Matthew of Westminster, perhaps
the most popular of the English mediseval chronicles,

1 The investigations of Julien Havet {Questions me'rovingiennes,
Paris, 1896, 8vo) are regarded as models. Very difficult problems
are there solved with faultless elegance. It is also well worth
while to read the memoirs in which M. L. Delisle has discussed
questions of origin. It is in the treatment of these questions that
the most accomplished scholars win their triumphs.

97 g

Analytical Operations

are almost entirely taken from original works by
Wendover and Matthew of Paris.1

IV. The critical investigation of authorship saves
historians from huge blunders. Its results are
striking. By eliminating spurious documents, by
detecting false ascriptions, by determining the con-
ditions of production of documents which had been
defaced by time, and by connecting them with their
sources,2 it has rendered services of such magnitude
that to-day it is regarded as having a special right
to the name of " criticism." It is usual to say of an
historian that he " fails in criticism " when he neglects
to distinguish between documents, when he never
mistrusts traditional ascriptions, and when he accepts,
as if afraid to lose a single one, all the pieces of
information, ancient or modern, good or bad, which
come to him, from whatever quarter.3

This view is perfectly just. We must not, how-
ever, be satisfied with this form of criticism, and we
must not abuse it.

1 See the edition of H. R. Luard (vol. i., London, 1890, 8vo) in
the Rerum Britannicarum medii cevi scriptores. Matthew of West-
minster's Flores historiarum figure in the Roman " Index," because
of the passages borrowed from the Chronica majora of Matthew of
Paris, while the Chronica majora themselves have escaped censure.

2 It would be instructive to draw up a list of the celebrated his-
torical works, such as Augustin Thierry's Histoire de la Conquete de
V Angleterre par les Normands, whose authority has been completely
destroyed after the authorship of their sources has been studied.
Nothing amuses the gallery more than to see an historian convicted
of having built a theory on falsified documents. Nothing is more
calculated to cover an historian with confusion than to find that he
has fallen into the error of treating seriously documents which are
no documents at all.

3 One of the crudest (and commonest) forms of "uncritical
method " is that which consists in employing as if they were docu-
ments, and placing on the same footing as documents, the utterances

98

Critical Investigation of Authorship

We must not abuse it. The extreme ot distrust,
in these matters, is almost as mischievous as the
extreme of credulity. Pere Hardouin, who attributed
the works of Vergil and Horace to mediaeval monks,
was every whit as ridiculous as the victim of Vrain-
Lucas. It is an abuse of the methods of this species
of criticism to apply them, as has been done, indis-
criminately, for the mere pleasure of it. The
bunglers who have used this species of criticism to
brand as spurious perfectly genuine documents, such
as the writings of Hroswitha, the Ligurinus, and the
bull Unam Sanctam, 1 or to establish imaginary
filiations between certain annals, on the strength
of superficial indications, would have discredited
criticism before now if that had been possible. It
is praiseworthy, certainly, to react against those
who never raise a doubt about the authorship of a
document ; but it is carrying the reaction too far to
take an exclusive interest in periods of history which
depend on documents of uncertain authorship. The
only reason why the documents of modern and con-
temporary history are found less interesting than
those 6f antiquity and the early middle ages, is that
the identity which nearly always obtains between
their apparent and their real authorship leaves no
room for those knotty problems of attribution in
which the virtuosi of criticism are accustomed to dis-
play their skill.2

of modern authors on the subject of documents. Novices do not
make a sufficient distinction, in the works of modern authors,
between what is added to the original source and what is taken
from it.

* See a list of examples in Bernheim's Handbuch, pp. 283, 289.

2 It is because it is necessary to subject documents of mediaeval

99

Analytical Operations

Nor must we be content with it. The critical
investigation of authorship, like textual criticism, is
preparatory, and its results negative. Its final aim
and crowning achievement is to get rid of documents
which are not documents, and which would have
misled us ; that is all. " It teaches us not to use bad
documents ; it does not teach us how to turn good
ones to account." * It is not the whole of " historical
criticism ; " it is only one stone in the edifice.2

and ancient history to the most searching criticism in respect of
authorship that the study of antiquity and the middle ages passes
for more " scientific " than that of modern times. The truth is, that
it is merely hampered by more preliminary difficulties.

1 Revue philosophique, 1887, ii. p. 170.

2 The theory of the critical investigation of authorship is now
settled, ne varietur ; it is given in detail in Bernheim's Lehrbuch,
pp. 242-340. For this reason we have had no scruple in dismissing
it with a short sketch. In French, the introduction of M. G. Monod
to his Etudes critiques sur les sources de Vkistoire me'rovingienne
(Paris, 1872, 8vo) contains elementary considerations on the subject.
Cf. Revue Critique, 1873, *• P« 3°§-

IOO

CHAPTER IV

CRITICAL CLASSIFICATION OF SOURCES

By the help of the preceding operations the docu-
ments, all the documents, let us suppose, of a given
class, or relating to a given subject, have been found.
We know where they are ; the text of each has been
restored, if necessary, and each has been critically
examined in respect of authorship. We know where
they have come from. It remains to combine and
classify the materials thus verified. This is the
last of the operations which may be called prepa-
ratory to the work of higher (or internal) criticism
and construction.

Whoever studies a point of history is obliged,
first of all, to classify his sources. To arrange, in a
rational and convenient manner, the verified mate-
rials before making use of them, is an apparently
humble, but really very important, part of the his-
torian's profession. Those who have learnt how
to do it possess, on that account alone, a marked
advantage : they give themselves less trouble, and
they obtain better results ; the others waste their
time and labour ; they are smothered sometimes
under the disorderly mass of notes, extracts, copies,
scraps, which they themselves have accumulated.
Who was it spoke of those busy people who spend
their lives lifting building-stones without knowing

IOI

Analytical Operations

where to place them, raising as they do so clouds
of blinding dust ?

I. Here, again, we have to confess that the first,
the natural impulse, is not the right one. The
first impulse of most men who have to utilise a
number of texts is to make notes from them, one
after another, in the order in which they study
them. Many of the early scholars (whose papers
we possess) worked on this system, and so do most
beginners who are not warned beforehand ; the latter
keep, as the former kept, notebooks, which they fill
continuously and progressively with notes on the
texts they are interested in. This method is utterly
wrong. The materials collected must be classified
sooner or later ; otherwise it would be necessary,
when occasion arose, to deal separately with the
materials bearing on a given point, to read right
through the whole series of notebooks, and this
laborious process would have to be repeated every
time a new detail was wanted. If this method
seems attractive at first, it is because it appears to
save time. But this is false economy; the ulti-
mate result is, an enormous addition to the labour
of search, and great difficulty in combining the
materials.

Others, well understanding the advantages of
systematic classification, have proposed to fit their
materials, as fast as collected, into their appropriate
places in a prearranged scheme. For this purpose
they use notebooks of which every page has first
been provided with a heading. Thus all the entries
of the same kind are close to one another. This
system leaves something to be desired; for addi-

102

Critical Classification of Sources

tions will not always fit without inconvenience into
their proper place ; and the scheme of classification,
once adopted, is rigid, and can only be modified
with difficulty. Many librarians used to draw up
their catalogues on this plan, which is now uni-
versally condemned.

There is a still more barbarous method, which
need not receive more than passing mention. This
is simply to register documents in the memory
without taking written notes. This method has
been used. Historians endowed with excellent
memories, and lazy to boot, have indulged this
whim, with the result that their quotations and
references are mostly inexact. The human memory
is a delicate piece of registering apparatus, but it is
so little an instrument of precision that such pre-
sumption is inexcusable.

Every one admits nowadays that it is advisable to
collect materials on separate cards or slips of paper.
The notes from each document are entered upon a
loose leaf furnished with the precisest possible in-
dications of origin. The advantages of this artifice
are obvious : the detachability of the slips enables
us to group them at will in a host of different com-
binations ; if necessary, to change their places : it is
easy to bring texts of the same kind together, and
to incorporate additions, as they are acquired, in the
interior of the groups to which they belong. As for
documents which are interesting from several points
of view, and which ought to appear in several groups,
it is sufficient to enter them several times over on
different slips ; or they may be represented, as often
as may be required, on reference-slips. Moreover,

103

Analytical Operations

the method of slips is the only one mechanically
possible for the purpose of forming, classifying, and
utilising a collection of documents of any great
extent. Statisticians, financiers, and men of letters
who observe, have now discovered this as well as
scholars.

The method of slips is not without its drawbacks.
Each slip ought to be furnished with precise refer-
ences to the source from which its contents have
been derived ; consequently, if a document has been
analysed upon fifty different slips, the same refer-
ences must be repeated fifty times. Hence a slight
increase in the amount of writing to be done. It
is certainly on account of this trivial complication
that some obstinately cling to the inferior notebook
system. Again, in virtue of their very detachability,
the slips, or loose leaves, are liable to go astray ; and
when a slip is lost how is it to be replaced ? To
begin with, its disappearance is not perceived, and,
if it were, the only remedy would be to go right
through all the work already done from beginning
to end. But the truth is, experience has suggested
a variety of very simple precautions, which we need
not here explain in detail, by which the draAvbacks
of the system are reduced to a minimum. It is
recommended to use slips of uniform size and tough
material, and to arrange them at the earliest oppor-
tunity in covers or drawers or otherwise. Every
one is free to form his own habits in these matters.
But it is well to realise beforehand that these
habits, according as they are more or less rational
and practical, have a direct influence on the results
of scientific work. Renan speaks of " these points

104

Critical Classification of Sources

of private librarianship which make up the half of
scientific work." x This is not too strong. One
scholar will owe a good part of his well-deserved
reputation to his method of collecting, while another
will be, so to speak, paralysed by his clumsiness in
that particular.2

After having collected the documents, whether
copied in extenso or abridged, on slips or loose leaves,
we classify them. On what scheme ? In what order ?
Clearly different cases must be treated differently,
and it would not be reasonable to lay down precise
formulae to govern them. all. However, we may give
a few general considerations.

II. We distinguish between the historian who
classifies verified documents for the purposes of
historical work, and the scholar who compiles
" Regesta" By the words " Regesta " and " Corpus "
we understand methodically classified collections of
historical documents. In a " Corpus " documents
are reproduced in extenso ; in " Regesta " they are
analysed and described.

The use of these compilations is to assist re-
searchers in collecting documents. Scholars set
themselves to perform, once for all, tasks of search
and classification from which, thanks to them, the
public will henceforth be free.

Documents may be grouped according to their

1 Renan, Feuilles ditacMes, p. 103.

2 It would be very interesting to have information on the methods
of work of the great scholars, particularly those who undertook
long tasks of collection and classification. Some information of
this kind is to be found in their papers, and occasionally in their
correspondence. On the methods of Du Cange, see L. Feugere, Etude
sur la vie et les ouvrages de Du Cange (Paris, 1858, 8vo), pp. 62 sqq.

105

Analytical Operations

date, according to their place of origin, according to
their contents, according to their form.1 Here we
have the four categories of time, place, species, and
form; by superposing, then, we obtain divisions of
smaller extent. We may undertake, for example, to
make a group of all the documents having a given
form, of a given country, and lying between two
given dates (French royal charters of the reign
of Philip Augustus) ; or of all the documents of a
given form (Latin inscriptions) ; or of a given species
(Latin hymns) ; of a given epoch (antiquity, the
middle ages). We may recall, by way of illustra-
tion, the existence of a Corpus Inscriptionum Grse-
carum, of a Corpus Inscriptionum Zatinarum, of a
Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, the
Regesta Imperii of J. F. Bohmer and his continuators,
the Regesta Pontificum Romanorum of P. Jaffe and
A. Potthast.

Whatever the division chosen, there are two

1 See J. G. Droysen, Grundriss cler Hitiorik, p. 19 : " Critical
classification does not exclusively adopt the chronological point
of view. . . . The more varied the points of view which criticism
uses to group materials, the more solid are the results yielded by
converging lines of inquiry."

The system has now been abandoned of grouping documents in a
Corpus or in regesta, as was done formerly, because they have the
common characteristic of being unedited, or possibly for the exactly
opposite reason. At one time the compilers of Analecta, Reliquioz
manuscriptorum, "treasuries of anecdota," spicilegia, and so on, used
to publish all the documents of a certain class which had the com-
mon feature of being unedited and of appearing interesting to them ;
on the other hand, Georgisch {Regesta Chronologico-diplomatica), Bre-
quigny {Table chronologique des dipldmes, chartes et actes imprimis
concemant Vhistoire de France), Wauters {Table chronologique des
chartes et dipldmes imprimis concemant Vhistoire de Belgique), have
grouped together all the documents of a certain species which had
the common character of having been printed.

I06

Critical Classification of Sources

alternatives : either the documents to be placed in
this division are dated or they are not.

If they are dated, as is the case, for example,
with the charters issued from the chancery of a
prince, care will have been taken to place at the
head of each slip the date (expressed in modern
reckoning) of the document entered upon it. No-
thing is then easier than to group in chronological
order all the slips, that is, all the documents, which
have been collected. The rule is to use chrono-
logical classification whenever possible. There is
only one difficulty, and that is of a practical order.
Even in the most favourable circumstances some
of the documents will have accidentally lost their
dates ; these dates the compiler is bound to restore,
or at least to attempt to restore; long and patient
research is necessary for the purpose.

If the documents are not dated, a choice must
be made between the alphabetical, the geographical,
and the systematic order. The history of the Corpus
of Latin inscriptions bears witness to the difficulty
of this choice. "The arrangement according to
date was impossible, seeing that most of the inscrip-
tions are not dated. From the time of Smetius it
was usual to divide them into classes, that is, a
distinction was made, resting solely on the contents
of the inscription, and having no regard to their
place of origin, between religious, sepulchral, mili-
tary, and poetical inscriptions, those which have
a public character, and those which only concern
private persons, and so on. Boeckh, although he
had preferred the geographical arrangement for his
Corpus Inscriptionum Grsecarum, was of opinion that

107

Analytical Operations

the arrangement by subjects, which had been hitherto
employed, was the only possible one for a Latin
Corpus. . . ." [Even those who, in France, proposed
the geographical arrangement] " wished to make an
exception of texts relating to the general history of
a country, certainly, at any rate, in the case of the
Empire; in 1 845 Zumpt defended a very complicated
eclectic system of this kind. In 1847 Mommsen
still rejected the geographical arrangement except
for municipal inscriptions, and in 1852, when he
published the Inscriptions of the Kingdom of Naples,
he had not entirely changed his opinion. It was
only on being charged by the Academy of Berlin
with the publication of the Corpus Inscriptionum
Latinarum, that, grown wise by experience, he re-
jected even the exceptions proposed by Egger in
the case of the general history of a province, and
thought it his duty to keep to the geographical
arrangement pure and simple." x And yet, consider-
ing the nature of epigraphic documents, the arrange-
ment according to place was the only rational one.
This has been amply demonstrated for more than
fifty years ; but collectors of inscriptions did not
come to an agreement on the subject till after two
centuries of tentative efforts in different directions.
For two centuries collections of Latin inscriptions
have been made without any perception of the fact
that "to group inscriptions according to their sub-
jects is much the same thing as to publish an
edition of Cicero in which his speeches, treatises,
and letters should be cut up and the fragments

1 J. P. Waltzing, Recueil g4n4ral des inscriptions latines (Louvain,
1892, 8vo), p. 41.

108

Critical Classification of Sources

arranged according to their subject-matter ; " that
" epigraphic monuments belonging to the same
territory mutually explain each other when placed
side by side ; " and, lastly, that " while it is all but
impossible to range in order of subject-matter a
hundred thousand inscriptions nearly all of which
belong to several categories ; on the other hand,
each monument has but one place, and a very
definite place, in the geographical order." 1

The alphabetical arrangement is very convenient
when the chronological and geographical arrange-
ments are unsuitable. There are documents, such
as the sermons, the hymns, and the secular songs
of the middle ages, which are not precisely dated
or localised. They are arranged in the alphabetical
order of their incipit — that is, the words with which
they begin.2

The systematic order, or arrangement by sub-
jects, is not to be recommended for the compilation
of a Corpus or of regesta. It is always arbitrary, and

1 Ibid. When the geographical order is adopted, a difficulty
arises from the fact that the origin of certain documents is un-
known ; many inscriptions preserved in museums have been brought
there no one knows whence. The difficulty is analogous to that
which results, for chronological regesta, from documents without
date.

2 Here the only difficulty arises in the case of documents whose
incipit has been lost. In the eighteenth century Siguier devoted
a great part of his life to the construction of a catalogue, in the
alphabetical order of the incipit, of the Latin inscriptions, to the
number of 50,000, which had at that time been published : he
searched through some twelve thousand works. This vast compila-
tion has remained unpublished and useless. Before undertaking
work of such magnitude it is well to make sure that it is on a
rational plan, and that the labour — the hard and thankless labour —
will not be wasted.

109

Analytical Operations

leads to inevitable repetition and confusion. Be-
sides, given collections arranged in chronological,
geographical, or alphabetical order, nothing more
than the addition of a good table of contents is
needed to make them available for all the purposes
which would be served by a systematic arrange-
ment. One of the chief rules of the art of Corpus
and 7'egesta-mak.mg, that great art which has been
carried to such perfection in the second half of the
nineteenth century,1 is to provide these collections,
whatever the grouping adopted, with a variety of
tables and indexes of a kind to facilitate the use
of them : incipit tables in chronological regesta which
lend themselves to such treatment, indexes of names
and dates in regesta arranged by order of incipit, and
so on.

Corpus and regesta-m.Sik.eYS collect and classify for
the use of others documents in which, at any rate
in all of which, they have no direct interest, and
are absorbed in this labour. Ordinary workers, on
the other hand, only collect and classify materials
useful for their individual studies. Hence certain
differences arise. For example, the arrangement by
subjects, on a predetermined system, which is so
little to be recommended for great collections, often
provides those who are composing monographs on
their own account with a scheme of classification
preferable to any other. But it will always be well
to cultivate the mechanical habits of which pro-
fessional compilers have learnt the value by experi-
ence : to write at the head of every slip its date,

1 See G. Waitz, Ueber die Herausgabe und Bearbeitung von Begesten,
in the Historische Zeitschrift, xl. (1878), pp. 280-95.

IIO

Ckitical Classification of Sources

if there is occasion for it, and a heading 1 in any
case ; to multiply cross-references and indices ; to
keep a record, on a separate set of slips, of all the
sources utilised, in order to avoid the danger of
having to work a second time through materials
already dealt with. The regular observance of these
maxims goes a great way towards making scientific
historical work easier and more solid. The posses-
sion of a well- arranged, though incomplete, collection
of slips has enabled M. B. Haureau to exhibit to
the end of his life an undeniable mastery over the
very special class of historical problems which he
studied.2

1 In the absence of a predetermined logical order, and when the
chronological order is not suitable, it is sometimes an advantage to
provisionally group the documents (that is, the slips) in the alpha-
betical order of the words chosen as headings (ScMagworter). This
is what is called the " dictionary system."

2 See Langlois, Manuel de bibliographie historiquc, i. p. 88.

Ill

CHAPTER V

CRITICAL SCHOLARSHIP AND SCHOLARS

The sum of the operations described in the pre-
ceding chapters (restoration of texts, investigation
of authorship, collection and classification of verified
documents) constitutes the vast domain of external
criticism, or critical scholarship.

The public at large, with its vulgar and super-
ficial standards, has nothing but disdain for the
whole of critical scholarship. Some of its votaries,
on the other hand, are inclined to exalt it unduly.
But there is a happy medium between these extremes
of over-appreciation and contempt.

The crude opinion of those who pity and despise
the minute analysis of external criticism hardly
deserves refutation. There is only one argument
for the legitimacy and honourable character of
the obscure labours of erudition, but it is a de-
cisive argument: it rests on their indispensability.
No erudition, no history. " Non sunt contemnenda
quasi parva" says St. Jerome, u sine quibus magna
const are non possunt." 1

On the other hand, scholars by profession, in their
zeal to justify their pride in their work, are not con-

1 This argument is easy to develop, and often has been, recently
by M. J. Bddier, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, February 15, 1894,
pp. 932 sqq.

There are some who willingly admit that the labours of erudition
112

Critical Scholarship and Scholars

tent with maintaining its necessity; they allow them-
selves to be carried away into an exaggeration of its
merit and importance. It has been said that the
sure methods of external criticism have raised
history to the dignity of a science, " of an exact
science ; " that critical investigations of authorship
"enable us, better than any other study, to gain
a profound insight into past ages;" that the habit
of criticising texts refines or even confers the
" historical sense." It has been tacitly assumed
that external criticism is the whole of historical
criticism, and that beyond the purgation, emenda-
tion, and classification of documents there is nothing
left to do. This illusion, common enough among
specialists, is too crude to need express refutation;
the fact is, that it is the psychological criticism
which deals with interpretation and examines into
the good faith and accuracy of authors that has,
better than any other study, enabled us to gain a pro-
found insight into past ages, not external criticism.1
An historian who should be fortunate enough to
find all the documents bearing on his studies
already edited correctly, classified, and critically

are useful, but ask impatiently whether " the editing of a text " or
"the deciphering of a Gothic parchment" is "the supreme effort
of the human mind," and whether the intellectual ability implied
by the practice of external criticism does or does not justify " all
the fuss made over those who possess it." On this question,
obviously devoid of importance, a controversy was held between
M. Brunetiere, who recommended scholars to be modest, and M.
Boucherie, who insisted on their reasons for being proud, in the
pages of the Revue des langucs romanes, 1880, vols. i. and ii.

1 There have been men who were critics of the first water where
external criticism alone was concerned, but who never rose to
the conception of higher criticism, or to a true understanding
of history.

113 H

Analytical Operations

examined as to authorship, would be in just as
good a position to use thern for writing history
as if he had performed all the preliminary opera-
tions himself. It is quite possible, whatever may
be said, to have the historical sense in full measure
without having ever, both literally and figuratively,
wiped away the dust from original documents — that
is, without having discovered and restored them for
oneself. We need not interpret in the Jewish or
etymological sense the dictum of Renan : " I do not
think it possible for any one to acquire a clear
notion of history, its limits, and the amount of
confidence to be placed in the different categories
of historical investigation, unless he is in the habit
of handling original documents." l This is to be
understood as simply referring to the habit of
going direct to the sources, and treating definite
problems.2 Without doubt a day will come when
ail the documents relating to the history of classical
antiquity shall have been edited and treated criti-
cally. There will then be no more room, in this
department of study, for textual criticism or the
investigation of sources ; but, for all that, the condi-
tions for the treatment of general ancient history,
or special parts of it, will be then eminently favour-
able. External criticism, as we cannot too often
repeat, is entirely preparatory; it is a means, not
an end ; the ideal state of things would be that
it should have been already sufficiently practised

1 Renan, Essais de morale et de critique, p. 36.

2 " If it were only for the sake of the severe mental discipline,
I should not think very highly of the philosopher who had not, at
least once in his life, worked at the elucidation of some special
point " (L'Avenir de la science, p. 136).

II4

Critical Scholarship and Scholars

that we might dispense with it for the future ; it
is only a temporary necessity. Theoretically, not
only is it unnecessary for those who wish to make
historical syntheses to do for themselves the pre-
paratory work on the materials which they use,
but we have a right to ask, as has been often
asked, whether there is any advantage in their
doing it.1 Would it not be preferable that workers
in the field of history should specialise ? On the
one class — the specialists — would devolve the ab-
sorbing tasks of external or erudite criticism; the
others, relieved of the weight of these tasks, would
have greater liberty to devote themselves to the
work of higher criticism, of combination and con-
struction. Such was the opinion of Mark Pattison,
who said, History cannot he written from manuscripts,
which is as much as to say : " It is impossible for
a man to write history from documents which he
is obliged to put for himself into a condition in
which they can be used."

Formerly the professions of " critical scholar "
and " historian " were, in fact, clearly distinguished.
The " historians " cultivated the empty and pompous
species of literature which then was known as " his-
tory," without considering themselves bound to keep
in touch with the work of the scholars. The latter,
for their part, determined by their critical researches
the conditions under which history must be written,
but were at no pains to write it themselves. Content
to collect, emend, and classify historical documents,

1 On the question whether it is necessary for every one to do
"all the preliminary grubbing for himself," cf. J. M. Robertson,
"Buckle and His Critics" (London, 1895, 8vo), p. 299.

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they took no interest in history, and understood the
past no better than did the mass of their contem-
poraries. The scholars acted as though erudition
were an end in itself, and the historians as if they
had been able to reconstruct vanished realities by
the mere force of reflection and ingenuity applied to
the inferior documents, which were common pro-
perty. So complete a divorce between erudition
and history seems to-day almost inexplicable, and
it was in truth mischievous enough. We need not
say that the present advocates of the division of
labour in history have nothing of the kind in view.
It is admittedly necessary that close relations should
obtain between the world of historians and that of
critical scholars, for the work of the latter has no
reason for existence beyond its utility to the former.
All that is meant is, that certain analytical and all
synthetic operations are not necessarily better per-
formed when they are performed by the same
person ; that though the characters of historian and
scholar may be combined, there is nothing illegi-
timate in their separation; and that perhaps this
separation is desirable in theory, as, in practice, it is
often a necessity.

In practice, what happens is as follows. What-
ever part of history a man undertakes to study,
there are only three possible cases. In the first the
sources have already been emended and classified;
in the second the preliminary work on the sources,
which has been only partially done, or not at all,
offers no great difficulty; in the third the sources
are in a very bad state, and require a great deal
of labour to fit them for use. We may observe, in

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Critical Scholarship and Scholars

passing, that there is naturally no proportion be-
tween the intrinsic importance of the subject and
the amount of preliminary work which must be
done before it can be treated : there are some sub-
jects of the highest interest, for example the history
of the origin and early development of Christianity,
which could not be properly attacked till after the
completion of investigations which occupied several
generations of scholars; but the material criticism
of the sources of the history of the French Revolu-
tion, another subject of the first rank, gave much
less trouble ; and there are comparatively unimpor-
tant problems in mediaeval history which will not
be solved till after an immense amount of external
criticism shall have been performed.

In the two first cases the expediency of a division
of labour does not come in question. But take the
third case. A man of ability discovers that the
documents which are necessary for the treatment
of a point of history are in a very bad condition ;
they are scattered, corrupt, and untrustworthy. He
must take his choice ; either he must abandon the
subject, having no taste for the mechanical opera-
tions which he knows to be necessary, but which,
as he foresees, would absorb the whole of his energy ;
or else he resolves to enter upon the preparatory
critical work, without concealing from himself that
in all probability he will never have time to utilise
the materials he has verified, and that he will there-
fore be working for those who will come after him.
If he adopts the second alternative he becomes a
critical scholar by profession, as it were in spite of
himself. A priori, it is true, there is nothing to

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Analytical Operations

prevent those who make great collections of texts
and publish critical editions from using their own
compilations and editions for the writing of history ;
and we see, as a matter of fact, that several men
have divided themselves between the preparatory
tasks of external criticism and the more exalted
labours of historical construction: it is enough to
mention the names of Waitz, Mommsen, and
Haur^au. But this combination is very rare, for
several reasons. The first is the shortness of life ;
there are catalogues, editions, regesta on a great scale,
the construction of which entails so much mecha-
nical labour as to exhaust the strength of the most
zealous worker. The second is the fact that, for
many persons, the tasks of critical scholarship are
not without their charm ; nearly every one finds
in them a singular satisfaction in the long run ;
and some have confined themselves to these tasks
who might, strictly speaking, have aspired to higher
things.

Is it a good thing in itself that some workers
should, voluntarily or not, confine themselves to
the researches of critical scholarship ? Yes, without
a doubt. In the study of history, the results of the
division of labour are the same as in the industrial
arts, and highly satisfactory — more abundant, more
successful, better regulated production. Critics who
have been long habituated to the restoration of texts
restore them with incomparable dexterity and sure-
ness ; those who devote themselves exclusively to
investigations of authorship and sources have in-
tuitions which would not occur to others less versed
in this difficult and highly specialised branch ; those

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Critical Scholarship and Scholars

who have spent their lives in the construction of
catalogues and the compilation of regesta construct
and compile them more easily, more quickly, and
better than the man in the street. Thus, not only
is there no special reason for requiring every " his-
torian" to be at the same time an active worker
in the field of critical scholarship, but even those
scholars who are engaged in the operations of ex-
ternal criticism come under different categories.
Similarly, in a stoneyard there is no point in the
architect being at the same time a workman, nor
have all the workmen the same functions. Although
most critical scholars have not rigorously specialised
so far, and although they vary their pleasures by
voluntarily executing different kinds of critical work,
it would be easy to name some who are specialists
in descriptive catalogues and indexes (archivists,
librarians, and the like), others who are more parti-
cularly " critics " (purifiers, restorers, and editors of
texts), and others who are pre-eminently compilers
of regesta. " The moment it is admitted that erudi-
tion is only valuable for the sake of its results, it
becomes impossible to carry the division of scientific
labour too far ; " * and the progress of the historical
sciences corresponds to the narrower and narrower
specialisation of the workers. It was possible, not
very long ago, for the same man to devote himself
successively to all the operations of historical in-
quiry, but that was because he appealed to a not
very exacting public : nowadays we require of those
who criticise documents a minute accuracy and an
absolute perfection which presuppose real professional

1 Renan, UAvenir de la science, p. 230.
IIO

Analytical Opeeations

skill. The historical sciences have now reached a
stage in their evolution at which the main lines
have been traced, the great discoveries made, and
nothing remains but a more precise treatment of
details. We feel instinctively that any further
advance must be by dint of investigations of such
extent, and analyses of such depth, as none but
specialists are capable of.

But the best justification of the division of workers
into " scholars " and " historians " (and of the distri-
bution of the former among the various branches of
external criticism) is to be found in the fact that
different persons have a natural vocation for dif-
ferent tasks. One of the chief justifications of the
institution of higher historical teaching is, in our
opinion, the opportunity afforded the teachers (pre-
sumably men of experience) of discerning in the
students, in the course of their university career,
either the germ of a vocation for critical scholar-
ship, or fundamental unfitness for critical work,
as the case may be.1 Criticus non fit, sed nascitur.
For one who is not endowed by nature with certain
aptitudes, a career of technical erudition has nothing
but disappointments in store : the greatest service
that can be rendered to young men hesitating
whether to adopt such a career or not is to warn
them of the fact. Those who hitherto have devoted
themselves to the preparatory tasks of criticism have
either chosen them in preference to others because

1 A university professor is in a very good position for discouraging
and encouraging vocations ; but "it is by personal effort that the
goal (critical skill) must be attained by the students, as Waitz well
said in an academic oration ; the teacher's part in this work is
small . . ." (Revue Critique, 1874, ii. p. 232).

I20

Ceitical Scholarship and Scholars

they had a taste for them, or else have submitted to
them because they knew they were necessary ; those
who engaged in them by choice have less merit, from
the ethical point of view, than those who submitted
to them, but, for all that, they have mostly obtained
better results, because they have worked, not as a
matter of duty, but joyfully and whole-heartedly.
It is important that every one should realise the
situation, and, in his own as well as the general
interest, embrace the special work which suits him
best.

We now propose to examine the natural aptitudes
which fit, and the truly prohibitory defects which
disqualify, for the labours of external criticism. We
shall, then, devote a few words to the effects pro-
duced on the character by professional habituation
to the labours of critical scholarship.

The chief condition of success in these labours is
to like them. Those who are exceptionally gifted
as poets or thinkers — that is, those who are endowed
with creative power — have much difficulty in adapt-
ing themselves to the technical drudgery of prepara-
tory criticism: they are far from despising it; on
the contrary, they hold it in honour, if they are
clear-sighted ; but they shrink from devoting them-
selves to it, for fear of using a razor, as is said,
to cut stones. "I have no mind," wro*3 Leibnitz
to Basnage, who had exhorted him to compile an
immense Corpus of unpublished and printed docu-
ments relating to the history of the law of nations ;
" I have no mind to turn transcriber. . . . Does it not
occur to you that the advice you give me resembles
that of a man who should wish to marry his friend

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Analytical Operations

to a shrew ? For to engage a man in a lifelong
work is much the same as to find him a wife."1
And Renan, speaking of those immense preliminary
labours " which have rendered possible the researches
of the higher criticism " and attempts at historical
construction, says : " The man who, with livelier
intellectual needs [than those of the men who per-
formed these labours], should now accomplish such
an act of abnegation, would be a hero. . . ."2 Al-
though Renan directed the publication of the Corpus
Inscri-ptionum Semiticaribm, and Leibnitz was the
editor of the Scrijotorcs rerum Brunsvicensium, neither
Leibnitz, nor Renan, nor their peers have, fortunately,
had the heroism to sacrifice their higher faculties to
purely critical learning.

Outside the class of superior men (and the in-
finitely more numerous class of those who wrongly
think themselves such), nearly every one, as we have
already said, finds in the long run a kind of satisfac-
tion in the minutiae of preparatory criticism. The
reason is, that the practice of this criticism appeals
to and develops two very widespread tastes — the
taste for collecting and the taste for puzzles. The
pleasure of collecting is one which is felt not by
children only, but by adults as well, no matter
whether the collection be one of various readings
or of postage-stamps. The deciphering of rebuses,
the solution of small problems of strictly definite
scope, are occupations which attract many able
minds. Every find brings pleasure, and in the

1 Quoted by Fr. X. von Wegele, Geschichte der deutschen Historio-
graphie (Munchen, 1 885, 8vo), p. 653.

2 Renan, ibid., p. 125.

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Critical Scholarship and Scholars

field of erudition there are innumerable finds — some
lying exposed and obvious, some guarded by all but
impenetrable barriers — to reward both those who do
and those who do not delight in surmounting diffi-
culties. All the scholars of any distinction have
possessed in an eminent degree the instincts of the
collector and the puzzle-solver, and some of them
have been quite conscious of the fact. " The more
difficulties we encountered in our chosen path," says
M. Haur^au, " the more the enterprise pleased us.
This species of labour, which is called bibliography
[investigations of authorship, principally from the
point of view of pseudepigraphy], could not aspire
to the homage of the public, but it has a great
attraction for those who devote themselves to it.
Yes, it is doubtless a humble study, but how many
others are there which so often compensate the
trouble they give by affording us opportunity to
cry Eureka."1 Julien Havet, when he was " already
known to the learned men of Europe," used to
divert himself "by apparently frivolous amuse-
ments, such as guessing square words or decipher-
ing cryptograms."2 Profound instincts, and, for all
the childish or ridiculous perversions which they
may exhibit in certain individuals, of the highest
utility ! After all, these are forms, the most rudi-
mentary forms, of the scientific spirit. Those who
are devoid of them have no place in the world of

1 B. Haureau, Notices et extraits de quelques manuscrits latins de la
Bibliotldque nationals, i. (Paris, 1890, 8vo), p. v.

2 Bibliotheque de V Ecole des chartes, 1896, p. 88. Compare analogous
traits in the interesting intellectual biography of the Hellenist,
palaeographer, and bibliographer, Charles Graux, by E. Lavisse
(Questions d'enseignement national, Paris, 1885, j8mo, pp. 265 sqq.).

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Analytical Operations

critical scholarship. But those who aspire to be
critical scholars will always be numerous; for the
labours of interpretation, construction, and exposi-
tion require the rarest gifts : all those whom chance
has thrown into the study of history, who desire to
do useful work in that department, but are wanting
in psychological tact, or find composition irksome,
will always allow themselves to be fascinated by the
simple and calm pleasures of the preliminary tasks.

But in order to succeed in critical labours it is
not enough to like them. It is necessary to pos-
sess qualifications " for which zeal is no substitute."
What qualifications ? Those who have asked this
question have answered vaguely : " Qualifications of
the moral rather than the intellectual order, patience,
intellectual honesty. . . ." Is it not possible to be
more precise ?

There are young students with no a priori repug-
nance for the labours of external criticism, who
perhaps are even disposed to like them, who yet
are — experience has shown it — totally incapable of
performing them. There would be nothing perplex-
ing in this if these persons were intellectually feeble ;
this incapacity would then be but one manifestation
of their general weakness ; nor yet if they had gone
through no technical apprenticeship. But we are
concerned with men of education and intelligence,
sometimes of exceptional ability, who do not labour
under the above disadvantages. These are the people
of whom we hear : " He works badly, he has the
genius of inaccuracy." Their catalogues, their edi-
tions, their regesta, their monographs swarm with
imperfections, and never inspire confidence; try as

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Critical Scholarship and Scholars

they may, they never attain, I do not say abso-
lute accuracy, but any decent degree of accuracy.
They are subject to " chronic inaccuracy," a
disease of which the English historian Froude is a
typical and celebrated case. Froude was a gifted
writer, but destined never to advance any statement
that was not disfigured by error ; it has been said
of him that he was constitutionally inaccurate. For
example, he had visited the city of Adelaide in
Australia : " We saw," says he, " below us, in a basin
with a river winding through it, a city of 1 5 0,000
inhabitants, none of whom has ever known or will
ever know one moment's anxiety as to the recurring
regularity of his three meals a day." Thus Froude,
now for the facts : Adelaide is built on an eminence ;
no river runs through it ; when Froude visited it the
population did not exceed 75,000, and it was suffer-
ing from a famine at the time. And more of the
same kind.1 Froude was perfectly aware of the
utility of criticism, and he was even one of the first
in England to base the study of history on that of
original documents, as well unpublished as published ;
but his mental conformation rendered him altogether
unfit for the emendation of texts; indeed, he mur-
dered them, unintentionally, whenever he touched
them. Just as Daltonism (an affection of the organs
of sight which prevents a man from distinguishing
correctly between red and green signals) incapacitates
for employment on a railway, so chronic inaccuracy,
or " Froude's Disease " (a malady not very difficult to
diagnose) ought to be regarded as incompatible with
the professional practice of critical scholarship.

1 See H. A. L. Fisher in the Fortnightly Review, Dec. 1894, p. 815.

i"<5

Analytical Operations

Froude's Disease does not appear to have ever
been studied by the psychologists, nor, indeed, is it
to be considered as a separate pathological entity.
Every one makes mistakes " out of carelessness,"
" through inadvertence," and in many other ways.
What is abnormal is to make many mistakes, to be
always making them, in spite of the most persever-
ing efforts to be exact. Probably this phenomenon
is connected with weakness of the attention and
excessive activity of the involuntary (or subcon-
scious) imagination which the will of the patient,
lacking strength and stability, is unable sufficiently
to control. The involuntary imagination intrudes
upon intellectual operations only to vitiate them ; its
part is to fill up the gaps of memory by conjecture,
to magnify and attenuate realities, and to confuse
them with the products of pure invention. Most
children distort everything by inexactitude of this
kind, and it is only after a hard struggle that they
ever attain to a scrupulous accuracy — that is, learn
to master their imagination. Many men remain
children, in this respect, the whole of their lives.

But, let the psychological causes of Froude's
Disease be what they may, another point claims our
attention. The man of the sanest and best-balanced
mind is liable to bungle the simplest kinds of critical
work if he does not allow them the necessary time.
In these matters precipitancy is the source of in-
numerable errors. It is rightly said that patience
is the cardinal virtue of the scholar. Do not work
too fast, act as if there were always something to be
gained by waiting, leave work undone rather than
spoil it: these are maxims easy enough to pro-

126

Critical Scholarship and Scholars

nounce, but not to be followed in practice by any
but persons of calm temperament. There are ner-
vous, excitable persons, who are always in a hurry
to get to the end, always seeking variety in their
occupations, and always anxious to dazzle and
astonish : these may possibly find honourable em-
ployment in other careers; but if they embrace
erudition, they are doomed to pile up a mass of
provisional work, which is likely to do more harm
than good, and is sure in the long run to cause them
many a vexation. The true scholar is cool, reserved,
circumspect. In the midst of the turmoil of life,
which flows past him like a torrent, he never hurries.
Why should he hurry ? The important thing is,
that the work he does should be solid, definitive,
imperishable. Better " spend weeks polishing a
masterpiece of a score of pages" in order to con-
vince two or three among the scholars of Europe
that a particular charter is spurious, or take ten
years to construct the best possible text of. a cor-
rupt document, than give to the press in the same
interval volumes of moderately accurate anccdota
which future scholars will some day have to put
through the mill again from beginning to end.

Whatever special branch of critical scholarship a
man may choose, he ought to be gifted with prudence,
an exceptionally powerful attention and will, and,
moreover, to combine a speculative turn of mind with
complete disinterestedness and little taste for action ;
for he must make up his mind to work for distant
and uncertain results, and, in nearly every case, for
the benefit of others. For textual criticism and the
investigation of sources, it is, moreover, very useful

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Analytical Operations

to have the puzzle-solving instinct — that is, a nimble,
ingenious mind, fertile in hypotheses, prompt to seize
and even to guess the relations of things. For tasks
of description and compilation (the preparation of
inventories and catalogues, corpus and regesta-m.Sik.mg)
it is absolutely necessary to possess the collector's
instinct, together with an exceptional appetite for
Avork, and the qualities of order, industry, and perse-
verance.1 These are the aptitudes required. The
labours of external criticism are so distasteful to
those who lack these aptitudes, and the results
obtained are, in their case, so small in comparison
with the time expended, that it is impossible for a
man to make too sure of his vocation before entering
upon a career of critical scholarship. It is pitiful to
see those who, for want of a wise word spoken in
due season, lose their way and vainly exhaust them-
selves in such a career, especially when they have
good reason for believing that they might have
employed their talents to better advantage in other
directions.2

II. As critical and preparatory tasks are remark-
ably well suited to the temperament of a very large

1 Most of those who have a vocation for critical scholarship
possess both the power of solving problems and the taste for
collecting. It is, however, easy to divide them into two categories
according as they show a marked preference for textual criticism
and investigation of authorship on the one hand, or for the more
absorbing and less intellectual labours of collection on the other.
J. Havet, a past-master in the study of erudite problems, always
declined to undertake a general collection of Merovingian royal
charters, a work which his admirers expected from him. In this
connection he readily admitted his "want of taste for feats of
endurance" {Bibliotheque de Vficole des chartes, 1896, p. 222).

2 It is common to hear the opposite of this maintained, namely,
that the labours of critical scholarship (external criticism) have this

128

Critical Scholarship and Scholars

number of Germans, and as the activity of German
erudition during the present century has been enor-
mous, it is to Germany that we must go for the best
cases of those mental deformations which are pro-
duced, in the long run, by the habitual practice
of external criticism. Hardly a year passes but
complaints are heard, in and about the German
universities, of the ill effects produced on scholars
by the tasks of criticism.

In 1 890, Herr Philippi, as Rector of the University
of Giessen, forcibly deplored the chasm which, as he
said, is opening between preparatory criticism and
general culture : textual criticism loses itself in
insignificant minutiae ; scholars collate for the mere
pleasure of collating ; infinite precautions are em-
ployed in the restoration of worthless documents ;
it is thus evident that " more importance is attached
to the materials of study than to its intellectual
results." The Rector of Giessen sees in the diffuse
style of German scholars and in the bitterness of
their polemical writings an effect of the habit they
have contracted of " excessive preoccupation with
little things." 1 In the same year the same note

advantage over other labours in the field of history that they are
within the range of average ability, and that the most moderate
intellects, after a suitable preliminary drilling, may be usefully
employed in them. It is quite true that men with no elevation of
soul or power of thought can make themselves useful in the field of
criticism, but then they must have special qualities. The mistake
is to think that with good will and a special drilling every one
without exception can be fitted for the operations of external
criticism. Among tho.-e who are incapable of these operations, as
well as among those who are fitted for them, there are both men of
sense and blockheads.

1 A. Philippi, Einige Bemerlungen ilber den philologischen Unter-
richt, Giessen, 1890, 4to. Cf. Revue Critique, 1892, i. p. 25.

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Analytical Operations

was sounded, at the University of Bale, by Herr J. v.
Pflugk-Harttung. " The highest branches of historical
science are despised," says this author in his Geschichts-
betrachtungen 1 : " all that is valued is microscopic
observations and absolute accuracy in unimportant
details. The criticism of texts and sources has
become a branch of sport : the least breach of the
rules of the game is considered unpardonable, while
conformity to them is enough to assure the approval
of connoisseurs, irrespectively of the intrinsic value
of the results obtained. Scholars are mostly male-
volent and discourteous towards each other; they
make molehills and call them mountains; their
vanity is as comic as that of the citizen of Frankfort
who used complacently to observe, '■ All that you can
see through yonder archway is Frankfort territory.' "2
We, for our part, are inclined to draw a distinction
between three professional risks to which scholars
are subject : dilettantism, hypercriticism, and loss of
the power to work.

To take the last first : the habit of critical analysis
has a relaxing and paralysing action on certain
intelligences. Men, of naturally timid dispositions,
discover that whatever pains they take with their
critical work, their editing or classifying of docu-
ments, they are \ery apt to make slight mistakes,
and these slight mistakes, as a result of their critical
education, fill them with horror and dread. To
discover blunders in their signed work when the
time for correction is past, causes them acute suffer-
ing. They reach at length a state of morbid anxiety

1 J. von Pflugk-Harttung, Geschichtsbetrachtungen, Gotha, 1890, 8vo

2 Ibid., p. 21.

130

Critical Scholarship and Scholars

and scrupulosity which prevents them from doing
anything at all, for fear of possible imperfections.
The examen rigorosum to which they are continually
subj ecting themselves brings them to a standstill.
They give the same measure to the productions of
others, and in the end they see in historical works
nothing but the authorities and the notes, the appa-
ratus criticus, and in the apparatus criticus they see
nothing but the faults in it which require correction.
Hyper criticism. — The excess of criticism, just as
much as the crudest ignorance, leads to error. It
consists in the application of critical canons to cases
outside their jurisdiction. It is related to criticism
as logic- chopping is to logic. There are persons
who scent enigmas everywhere, even where there
are none. They take perfectly clear texts and sub-
tilise on them till they make them doubtful, under
the pretext of freeing them from imaginary corrup-
tions. They discover traces of forgery in authentic
documents. A strange state of mind S By constantly
guarding against the instinct of credulity they come
to suspect everything.1 It is to be observed that
in proportion as the criticism of texts and sources
makes positive progress, the danger of hypercriticism
increases. When all the sources of history have
been properly criticised (for certain parts of ancient
history this is no distant prospect), good sense will
call a halt. But scholars will refuse to halt ; they
will refine, as they do already on the best established
texts, and those who refine will inevitably fall into
hypercriticism. " The peculiarity of the study of
history and its auxiliary philological sciences," says

1 Cf. supra, p. 99.

J3i

Analytical Operations

Renan, " is that as soon as they have attained their
relative perfection they begin to destroy themselves." *
Hypercriticisrn is the cause of this.

Dilettantism. — Scholars by profession and voca-
tion have a tendency to treat the external criti-
cism of documents as a game of skill, difficult, but
deriving an interest, much as chess does, from the
very complication of its rules. Some of them are
indifferent to the larger questions — to history itself,
in fact. They criticise for the sake of criticism,
and, in their view, the elegance of the method of
investigation is much more important than the
results, whatever they may be. These virtuosi are
not concerned to connect their labours with some
general idea — to criticise systematically, for example,
all the documents relating to a question, in order to
understand it ; they criticise indiscriminately texts
relating to all manner of subjects, on the one con-
dition of being sufficiently corrupt. Armed with
their critical skill, they range over the whole of
the domain of history, and stop wherever a knotty
problem invites their services ; this problem solved,
or at least discussed, they go elsewhere to look for
others. They leave behind them no coherent work,
but a heterogeneous collection of memoirs on every
conceivable subject, which resembles, as Carlyle
says, a curiosity shop or an archipelago of small
islands.

Dilettanti defend their dilettantism by sufficiently
plausible arguments. To begin with, say they,
everything is important ; in history there is no
document which has not its value : " No scientific

1 Renan, L'Avenir de la science, p. xiv.
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Critical Scholarship and Scholars

work is barren, no truth is without its use for
science . . . ; in history there is no such thing as
a trivial subject ; " consequently, "it is not the
nature of the subject which makes work valuable,
but the method employed." 1 The important thing
in history is not " the ideas one accumulates ; it is
the mental gymnastics, the intellectual training — in
short, the scientific spirit." Even supposing that
there are degrees of importance among the data of
history, no one has a right to maintain a priori
that a document is " useless." What, pray, is the
criterion of utility in these matters ? How many
documents are there not which, after being long
despised, have been suddenly placed in the fore-
ground by a change of standpoint or by new dis-
coveries ? " All exclusion is rash ; there is no
research which it is possible to brand beforehand
as necessarily sterile. That which has no value in
itself may become valuable as a necessary means."
Perhaps a day may come when, science being in
a sense complete, indifferent documents and facts
may be safely thrown overboard ; but we are not at
present in a position to distinguish the superfluous
from the necessary, and in all probability the line
of demarcation will never be easy to trace. This
justifies the most special researches and the most
futile in all appearance. And, if it come to the
worst, what does it matter if there is a certain
amount of work wasted ? " It is a law in science,
as in all human effort," and indeed in all the opera-
tions of nature, " to work in broad outlines, with a
wide margin of what is superfluous."

1 Revue historique, lxiii. (1897), p. 320.
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Analytical Operations

We shall not undertake to refute these argu-
ments to the full extent in which this is possible.
Besides, Renan, who has put the case for both sides
of the question with equal vigour, definitively closed
the debate in the following words : " It may be said
that some researches are useless in the sense of
taking up time which would have been better spent
on more serious questions. . . . Although it is not
necessary for an artisan to have a complete know-
ledge of the work he is employed to execute, it is
still to be desired that those who devote themselves
to special labours should have some notion of the
more general considerations which alone give value
to their researches. If all the industrious workers
to whom modern science owes its progress had had
a philosophical comprehension of what they were
doing, how much precious time would have been
saved ! ... It is deeply to be regretted that there
should be such an immense waste of human effort,
merely for want of guidance, and a clear conscious-
ness of the end to be pursued." *

Dilettantism is incompatible with a certain eleva-
tion of mind, and with a certain degree of " moral
perfection," but not with technical proficiency.
Some of the most accomplished critics merely make
a trade of their skill, and have never reflected on
the ends to which their art is a means. It would,
however, be wrong to infer that science itself has
nothing to fear from dilettantism. The dilettanti

1 Renan, ibid., pp. 122, 243. The same thought has been more
than once expressed, in different language, by E. Lavisse, in his
addresses to the students of Paris (Questions d'enseiguement national,
pp. 14, 86, &c).

134

Critical Scholarship and Scholars

of criticism who work as fancy or curiosity bids
them, who are attracted to problems not by their
intrinsic importance, but by their difficulty, do not
supply historians (those whose work it is to combine
materials and use them for the main purposes of
history) with the materials of which the latter have
the most pressing need, but with others which might
have waited. If the activity of specialists in external
criticism were exclusively directed to questions whose
solution is important, and if it were regulated and
guided from above, it would be more fruitful.

The idea of providing against the dangers of
dilettantism by a rational "organisation of labour"
is already ancient. Fifty years ago it was common
to hear people talking of " supervision," of " con-
centrating scattered forces ; " dreams were rife of
" vast workshops " organised on the model of those
of modern industry, in which the preparatory labours
of critical scholarship were to be performed on a
great scale, in the interests of science. In nearly
all countries, in fact, governments (through the
medium of historical committees and commissions),
academies, and learned societies have endeavoured
in our day, much as monastic congregations did of
old, to group professed scholars for the purposes of
vast collective enterprises, and to co-ordinate their
efforts. But this banding of specialists in external
criticism for the service and under the supervi-
sion of competent men presents great mechanical
difficulties. The problem of the " organisation of
scientific labour " is still the order of the day.1

1 One of us (M. Langlois) poposes to give elsewhere a detailed
account of all that has been done in the last three hundred years,

135

Analytical Operations

III. Scholars are often censured for pride and
excessive harshness in the judgments which they
pass on the labours of their colleagues; and these
faults, as we have seen, are often attributed to their
excessive "preoccupation with little things," espe-
cially by persons whose attempts have been severely
judged. In reality there do exist modest and
kindly scholars : it is a question of character : pro-
fessional "preoccupation with little things" is not
enough to change natural disposition in this respect.
" Ce bon monsieur Du Cange," as the Benedictines
said, was modest to excess. "Nothing more is
required," says he, in speaking of his labours, "but
eyes and fingers in order to do as much and more ; "
he never blamed any one, on principle. " If I study
it is for the pleasure of studying, and not to give
pain to any one else, any more than to myself." 1
It is, however, true that most scholars have no com-
punction in exposing each other's mistakes, and
that their austere zeal sometimes finds expression
in harsh and overbearing language. Barring the
harshness they are quite right. Like physicians,
chemists, and other members of learned and scien-
tific professions, they have a keen appreciation of
the value of scientific truth, and it is for this
reason that they make a point of calling offenders

but especially in the nineteenth century, for the organisation of
historical work in the principal countries of the world. Some
information has already been collected on this subject by J.
Franklin Jameson, "The Expenditures of Foreign Governments in
behalf of History," in the "Annual Report of the American His-
torical Association for 1891," pp. 38-61.

1 L. Feugere, tltude sur la vie et les ouvrages de Du Cange, pp.

55, 58.

136

Critical Scholarship and Scholars

to account. They are thus enabled to bar the door
against the tribe of incapables and charlatans who
once infested their profession.

Among the youths who propose to devote them-
selves to the study of history there are some in
whom the commercial spirit and vulgar ambition are
stronger than the love of science. These are apt to
say to themselves : " Historical work, if it is to be
done according to the rules of method, requires an
infinite amount of labour and caution. But do we
not see historical writings whose authors have more
or less seriously violated the rules ? Are these
authors thought any the less of on this account ? Is
it always the most conscientious writer who enjoys
the highest consideration ? Cannot tact supply the
place of knowledge ? " If tact really could supply the
place of knowledge, then, as it is easier to do bad
work than good, and as the important thing with
these people is success, they might be tempted to
conclude that it does not matter how badly they
work as long as they succeed. Why should not
things go in these matters as they do in life, where
it is not necessarily the best men that get on best ?
Well, it is due to the pitiless severity of the critics
that calculations of this kind would be as disastrous
as they are despicable.

Towards the end of the Second Empire there was
in France no enlightened public opinion on the sub-
ject of historical work. Bad books of historical
erudition were published with impunity, and some-
times even procured undeserved rewards for their
authors. It was then that the founders of the Revue
Critique- d'histoire et delitUrature undertook to combat

137

Analytical Operations

a state of things which they rightly deemed demo-
ralising. With this object they administered public
chastisement to those scholars who showed lack of
conscience or method, in a manner calculated to
disgust them with erudition for ever. They per-
formed sundry notable executions, not for the pleasure
of it, but with the firm resolve to establish a censor-
ship and a wholesome dread of justice, in the domain
of historical study. Bad workers henceforth received
no quarter, and though the Revue did not exert any
great influence on the public at large, its police-
operations covered a wide enough radius to impress
most of those concerned with the necessity of sincerity
and respect for method. During the last twenty-
five years the impulse thus given has spread beyond
all expectation.

It is now a matter of great difficulty to impose on
the world of scholars, in matters connected with their
studies, or at least to keep up the deception for any
length of time. In the case of the historical sciences,
as well as the sciences proper, it is now too late to
found a new error or to discredit an old truth. It
may be a few months, possibly a few years, before
a bungled experiment in chemistry or a scamped
edition is recognised as such; but inexact results,
though temporarily accepted under reserve, are always
sooner or later, and generally very soon, discovered,
denounced, and eliminated. The theory of the
operations of external criticism is now so well estab-
lished, the number of specialists thoroughly versed
in them is now so great in every country, that,
with rare exceptions, descriptive catalogues of docu-
ments, editions, regesta, monographs, are scrutinised,

138

Critical Scholarship and Scholars

dissected, and judged as soon as they appear. It is
well to be warned. It will for the future be the
height of imprudence to risk publishing a work of
erudition without having first done everything pos-
sible to make it unassailable ; otherwise it will im-
mediately, or after brief delay, be attacked and
demolished. Not knowing this, certain well-meaning
persons still show themselves, from time to time,
simple enough to enter the lists of critical scholar-
ship insufficiently prepared ; they are filled with a
desire to be useful, and are apparently convinced
that here, as in politics and elsewhere, it is possible
to work by extemporised and approximate methods
without any " special knowledge." They are sorry
afterwards. The knowing ones do not take the risk ;
the tasks of critical scholarship have no seductions
for them, for they are aware that the labour is great
and the glory moderate, and that the field is en-
grossed by clever specialists not too well disposed
towards intruders. They see plainly there is no
room for them here. The blunt uncompromising
honesty of the scholars thus delivers them from un-
desirable company of a kind which the " historians "
proper have still occasionally to put up with.

Bad workers, in fact, on the hunt for a public
less closely critical than the scholars, are very ready
to take refuge in historical exposition. The rules of
method are here less obvious, or, rather, not so well
known. While the criticism of texts and sources
has been placed on a scientific basis, historical syn-
thesis is still performed haphazard. Mental con-
fusion, ignorance, negligence — faults which stand
out so clearly in works of critical scholarship — may

139

Analytical Operations

in historical works be disguised up to a certain point
by literary artifices, and the public at large, which is
not well educated in this respect, is not shocked.1
In short, there is still, in this department, a cer-
tain chance of impunity. This chance, however, is
diminishing, and a day will come, before so very long,
when the superficial writers who make incorrect syn-
theses will be treated with as little consideration
as is now received by those who show themselves
unscrupulous or unskilful in the technique of pre-
paratory criticism. The works of the most cele-
brated historians of the nineteenth century, those
who died but yesterday, Augustin Thierry, Ranke,
Fustel de Coulanges, Taine, and others, are already
battered and riddled with criticism. The faults of
their methods have already been seen, denned, and
condemned.

Those who are insensible to other considerations
ought to be moved to honesty in historical work by
the reflection that the time is now past, or nearly so,
when it was possible to do bad work without having
to suffer for it.

1 Even the specialists in external criticism themselves, when they
do not take the line of despising all synthesis a priori, are almost
as easily dazzled as anybody else by incorrect syntheses, by a show
of "general ideas," or by literary artifices, in spite of their clear-
sightedness where works of critical scholarship are concerned.

140

SECTION II.— INTERNAL CRITICISM
CHAPTER VI

INTERPEETATIVE CRITICISM (HERMENEUTIC)

I. When a zoologist describes the form and situation
of a muscle, when a physiologist gives the curve of
a movement, we are able to accept their results
without reserve, because we know by what method,
by what instruments, by what system of notation
they have obtained them.1 But when Tacitus says
of the Germans, Arva per annos mutant, we do not
know beforehand whether he took the right method
to inform himself, nor even in what sense he used
the words arva and mutant ; to ascertain this a pre-
liminary operation is required.2 This operation is
internal criticism.

The object of criticism is to discover what, in a
document may be accepted as true. Now the docu-
ment is only the final result of a long series of
operations, on the details of which the author gives

1 The sciences of observation do, however, need a species of
criticism. We do not accept without verification results obtained
by anybody, but only results obtained by those who know how to
work. But this criticism is made once for all, and applies to the
author, not to his works ; historical criticism, on the contrary, is
obliged to deal separately with every part of a document.

2 Cf. supra, book ii. chap. i. p. 67.

I4I

Analytical Operations

us no information. He had to observe or collect
facts, to frame sentences, to write down words ; and
these operations, which are perfectly distinct one
from another, may not all have been performed
with the same accuracy. It is therefore necessary
to analyse the product of the author's labour in
order to distinguish which operations have been
incorrectly performed, and reject their results .
Analysis is thus necessary to criticism ; all criticism
begins with analysis.

In order to be logically complete, the analysis
ought to reconstruct all the operations which the
author must have performed, and to examine them
one by one, to see whether each has been performed
correctly. It would be necessary to pass in review
all the successive acts by which the document was
produced, from the moment when the author ob-
served the fact which is its subject up to the move-
ments of his hand by which he traced the letters of
the document ; or, rather, it would be necessary to
proceed in the opposite direction, step by step, from
the movements of the hand back to the observation.
This method would be so long and so tedious that
no one would ever have the time or the patience
to apply it.

Internal criticism is not, like external criticism,
an instrument used for the mere pleasure of using
it ; * it yields no immediate satisfaction, because it
does not definitively solve any problem. It is only
applied because it is necessary, and its use is re-
stricted to a bare minimum. The most exacting
historian is satisfied with an abridged method which

1 Cf. supra, p. 122.
I42

Interpretative Criticism

concentrates all the operations into two groups : ( i )
the analysis of the contents of the document, and
the positive interpretative criticism which is neces-
sary for ascertaining what the author meant ; (2)
the analysis of the conditions under which the
document was produced, and its negative criticism,
necessary for the verification of the author's state-
ments. This twofold division of the labour of
criticism is, moreover, only employed by a select
few. The natural tendency, even of historians who
work methodically, is to read the text with the
object of extracting information directly from it,
without any thought of first ascertaining what
exactly was in the author's mind.1 This procedure
is excusable at most in the case of nineteenth-century
documents, written by men whose language and
mode of thought are familiar to us, and then only
when there is not more than one possible inter-
pretation. It becomes dangerous as soon as the
author's habits of language or thought begin to
differ from those of the historian who reads him,
or when the meaning of the text is not obvious
and indisputable. Whoever, in reading a text, is
not exclusively occupied with the effort to under-
stand it, is sure to read impressions of his own
into it; he is struck by phrases or words in the
document which correspond to his own ideas, or
agree with his own a priori notion of the facts ;
unconsciously he detaches these phrases or words,

1 Taine appears to have proceeded thus in vol. ii., La Revolution,
of hig Origines de la France conUmporaine^ He had made extracts
from unpublished documents and inserted a great number of them
in his work, but it would seem that he did not first methodically
analyse them in order to determine their meaning.

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Analytical Operations

and forms out of them an imaginary text which he
puts in the place of the real text of the author.1

1 Fustel de Coulanges explains very clearly the danger of this
method: "Some students begin by forming an opinion . . . and
it is not till afterwards that they begin to read the texts. They
run a great risk of not understanding them at all, or of understand-
ing them wrongly. What happens is that a kind of tacit contest
goes on between the text and the preconceived opinions of the
reader ; the mind refuses to grasp what is contrary to its idea, and
the issue of the contest commonly is, not that the mind surrenders
to the evidence of the text, but that the text yields, bends, and
accommodates itself to the preconceived opinion. . . . To bring one's
personal ideas into the study of texts is the subjective method.
A man thinks he is contemplating an object, and it is his own idea
that he is contemplating. He thinks he is observing a fact, and
the fact at once assumes the colour and the significance his mind
wishes it to have. He thinks he is reading a text, and the words
of the text take a particular meaning to suit a ready-made opinion.
It is this subjective method which has done most harm to the
history of the Merovingian epoch. ... To read the texts was not
enough ; what was required was to read them before forming any
convictions . . ." (Monarchic franque, p. 31). For the same reason
Fustel de Coulanges deprecated the reading of one document in
the light of another ; he protested against the custom of explaining
the Germania of Tacitus by the barbaric laws. In the Revue des
questions historiques, 1897, vol. i., a lesson on method, De V analyse
des textes historiques, is given apropos of a commentary by M.
Monod on Gregory of Tours : " The historian ought to begin his
work with an exact analysis of each document. ... The analysis
of a text . . . consists in determining the sense of each word, and
eliciting the true meaning of the writer. . . . Instead of searching
for the sense of each of the historian's words, and for the thought
he has expressed in them, he [M. Monod] comments on each sen-
tence in the light of what is found in Tacitus or the Salic law. . . .
We should understand what analysis really is. Many talk about
it, few use it. . . . The use of analysis is, by an attentive study
of every detail, to elicit from a text all that is in it ; not to intro-
duce into the text what is not there."

After reading this excellent advice it will be instructive to read
M. Monod's reply (in the Revue historique) ; it will be seen that
Fustel de Coulanges himself did not always practise the method
he recommended.

I44

Interpretative Criticism

II. Here, as always in. history, method consists
in repressing the first impulse. It is necessary to
be penetrated by the principle, sufficiently obvious
but often forgotten, that a document only contains
the ideas of the man who wrote it, and to make
it a rule to begin by understanding the text by
itself, before asking what can be extracted from it
for the purposes of history. We thus arrive at this
general rule of method : the study of every docu-
ment should begin with an analysis of its contents,
made with the sole aim of determining the real
meaning of the author.

This analysis is a preliminary operation, distinct
and independent. Experience here, as in the tasks
of critical scholarship,1 has decided in favour of the
system of slips. Each slip will contain the analysis
of a document, of a separate part of a document,
or of an episode in a narrative ; the analysis ought
to indicate not only the general sense of the text,
but also, as far as possible, the object and views of
the author. It will be well to reproduce verbally
any expressions which may seem characteristic of
the author's thought. Sometimes it will be enough
to have analysed the text mentally : it is not always
necessary to put down in black and white the whole
contents of a document ; in such cases we simply
enter the points of which we intend to make use.
But against the ever-present danger of substituting
one's personal impressions for the text there is only
one real safeguard ; it should be made an invariable
rule never on any account to make an extract from
a document, or a partial analysis of it, without

1 Cf. supra, p. 103.

145 K

Analytical Operations

having first made a comprehensive analysis x of it
mentally, if not on paper.

To analyse a document is to discern and isolate
all the ideas expressed by the author. Analysis
thus reduces to interpretative criticism.

Interpretation passes through two stages ; the first
is concerned with the literal, the second with the
real meaning.

III. The determination of the literal meaning of
a document is a linguistic operation; accordingly,
Philology (in the narrow sense) has been reckoned
among the auxiliary sciences of history. To under-
stand a text it is first necessary to know the lan-
guage. But a general knowledge of the language is
not enough. In order to interpret Gregory of Tours,
it is not enough to know Latin in a general way ; it
is necessary to add a special study of the particular
kind of Latin written by Gregory of Tours.

The natural tendency is to attribute the same
meaning to the same word wherever it occurs. We
instinctively treat a language as if it were a fixed
system of signs. Fixity, indeed, is a characteristic
of the signs which have been expressly invented for
scientific use, such as algebraical notation or the
nomenclature of chemistry. Here every expression
has a single precise meaning, which is absolute and
invariable ; it expresses an accurately analysed and
defined idea, only one such idea, and that always the
same in whatever context the expression may occur,

1 The work of analysis may be entrusted to a second person ;
this is what happens in the case of regesta and catalogues of
records ; if the analysis has been correctly performed by the com-
piler of regesta, there is no need to do it over again.

I46

Interpretative Criticism

and by whatever author it may be used. But ordi-
nary language, in which documents are written,
fluctuates : each word expresses a complex and ill-
defined idea; its meanings are manifold, relative,
and variable ; the same word may stand for several
different things, and is used in different senses by
the same author according to the context ; lastly,
the meaning of a word varies from author to author,
and is modified in the course of time. Vel, which
in classical Latin only has the meanings or and even,
means and in certain epochs of the middle ages ;
suffragium, which is classical Latin for suffrage, takes
in mediaeval Latin the sense of help. We have, then,
to learn to resist the instinct which leads us to ex-
plain all the expressions of a text by their classical
or ordinary meanings. The grammatical interpre-
tation, based on the general rules of the language,
must be supplemented by an historical interpreta-
tion founded on an examination of the particular
case.

The method consists in determining the special
meaning of the words in the document ; it rests on
a few very simple principles.

(i) Language changes by continuous evolution.
Each epoch has a language of its own, which must
be treated as a separate system of signs. In order
to understand a document Ave must know the lan-
guage of the time — that is, the meanings of words and
forms of expression in use at the time when the text
was written. The meaning of a word is to be deter-
mined by bringing together the passages where it is
employed : it will generally be found that in one or
other of these the remainder of the sentence leaves

H7

Analytical Operations

no doubt as to the meaning of the word in ques-
tion.1 Information of this kind is given in historical
dictionaries, such as the Thesaurus Linguae Latinm ;
or the glossaries of Du Cange. In these compila-
tions the article devoted to each word is a collection
of the passages in which the word occurs, accom-
panied by indications of authorship which fix the
epoch.

When the author wrote in a dead language which
he had learnt out of books — this is the case with
the Latin texts of the earlier middle ages— we must
be on our guard against words used in an arbitrary
sense, or selected for the sake of elegance : for
example, consul (count, earl), capite census (censitary),
agellus (grand domain).

(2) Linguistic usage may vary from one region
to another ; we have, then, to know the language of
the country where the document was written — that is,
the peculiar meanings current in the country.

(3) Each author has his own manner of writing;
we have, then, to study the language of the author,
the peculiar senses in which he used words.2 This
purpose is served by lexicons to a single author, as
Meusel's Lexicon Ccesarianum, in which are brought

1 Practical examples of this procedure will be found in Deloche,
La Truslis et Vantrustion royal (Paris, 1873, 8vo), and, above all, in
E'ustel de Coulanges. See especially the study of the words marca
(Recherches sur quelques problemcs dliistoire, pp. 322-56), mallus (ibid.,
372-402), alien {U Alien et le domaine rural, pp. 149-70), portio (ibid.,
pp. 239-52).

2 The theory and an example of this procedure will be found
in Fustel de Coulanges, Recherches sur quelques problimes d'histoire
(pp. 189-289), with reference to the statements of Tacitus about
the Germans. See especially pp. 263-89, the discussion of the
celebrated passage on the German mode of culture.

I48

Interpretative Criticism

together all the passages in which the author used
each word.

(4) An expression changes its meaning according
to the passage in which it occurs ; we must there-
fore interpret each word and sentence not as if it
stood isolated, but with an eye to the general sense
of the context. This is the rule of context,1 a funda-
mental rule of interpretation. Its meaning is that,
before making use of a phrase taken from a text,
we must have read the text in its entirety ; it pro-
hibits the stuffing of a modern work with quota-
tions— that is, shreds of phrases torn from passages
without regard to the special sense given to them
by the context.2

These rules, if rigorously applied, would con-
stitute an exact method of interpretation which
would hardly leave any chance of error, but would
require an enormous expenditure of time. What
an immense amount of labour would be necessary
if, in the case of each word, we had to determine by
a special operation its meaning in the language of

1 Fustel de Coulanges formulates it thus : " It is never safe to
separate two words from their context ; this is just the way to
mistake their meaning" {Monarchic franque, p. 228, note 1).

2 This is how Fustel de Coulanges condemns this practice : " I
am not speaking of pretenders to learning who quote second-hand,
and at most take the trouble to verify whether the phrase they have
seen quoted really occurs in the passage indicated. To verify
quotations is one thing and to read texts quite another, and the
two often lead to opposite results " [Revue des questions historiques,
1887, vol. i.). See also (L'Alleu et le domaine rural, pp. 171-98) the
lesson given to M. Giasson on the theory of the community of land :
forty-five quotations are studied in the light of their context, with
the object of proving that none of them bears the meaning M. Gias-
son attributed to it. We may also compare the reply : Giasson,
Les ConiiMinaux et le domaine rural a Vlpoque franque, Paris, 1890.

I49

Analytical Operations

the time, of the country, of the author, and in the
context ! Yet this is the labour demanded by a
well-made translation : in the case of some ancient
works of great literary value it has been submitted
to ; for the mass of historical documents we content
ourselves, in practice, with an abridged method.

All words are not equally subject to variations
of meaning; most of them keep a fairly uniform
meaning in all authors and in all periods. We
may therefore be satisfied to study specially those
expressions which, from their nature, are liable to
take different meanings : first, ready-made expres-
sions which, being fixed, do not follow the evolution
of the words of which they are composed ; secondly,
and chiefly, words denoting things which are in their
nature subject to evolution ; classes of men (miles,
colonics, servus); institutions (conventus, justitia, judex);
usages (alien, hdntfice, tlectiori) ; feelings, common
objects. In the case of all words of such classes
it would be imprudent to assume a fixed meaning ;
it is an absolutely necessary precaution to ascertain
what is the sense in which they are used in the text
to be interpreted. " These studies of words," said
Fustel de Coulanges, "have a great importance in
historical science. A badly interpreted term may
be the source of serious error." l And, in fact, simply
by a methodical application of interpretative criti-
cism to a hundred words or so, he succeeded in
revolutionising the study of the Merovingian epoch.

1 All that is original in Fustel de Coulanges rests on his inter-
pretative criticism ; he never did personally any work in external
criticism, and his critical examination of authors' good faith and
accuracy was hampered by a respect for the statements of ancient
authors which amounted to credulity.

150

Interpretative Criticism

IV. When we have analysed the document and
determined the literal meaning of its phrases, we
cannot even yet be sure that we have reached the
real thoughts of the author. It is possible that he
may have used some expressions in an oblique sense ;
there are several kinds of cases where this occurs :
allegory and symbolism, jests and hoaxes, allusion
and implication, even the ordinary figures of speech,
metaphor, hyperbole, litotes.1 In all these cases it
is necessary to pierce through the literal meaning
to the real meaning, which the author has purposely
disguised under an inexact form.

Logically the problem is very embarrassing : there
is no fixed external criterion by which we can make
sure of detecting an oblique sense ; in the case of
the hoax, which in the present century has become
a branch of literature, it is an essential part of the
author's plan to leave no indication which would
betray the jest. In practice we may be morally
certain that an author is not using an oblique sense
wherever his prime object is to be understood ; we
are therefore not likely to meet with difficulties of
this kind in official documents, in charters, and in
historical narratives. In all these cases the general
form of the document permits us to assume that it
is written in the literal sense of the words.

On the other hand, we must be prepared for

1 A parallel difficulty occurs in the interpretation of illustra-
tive monuments ; the representations are not always to be taken
literally. In the Behistun monument Darius tramples the van-
quished chiefs under foot : this is a metaphor. Mediaeval miniatures
show us persons lying in bed with crowns on their heads : this is to
symbolise their royal rank ; the painter did not mean that they wore
their crowns to sleep in.

Analytical Operations

oblique senses when the author had other interests
than that of being understood, or when he wrote
for a public which could understand his allusions
and read between the lines, or when his readers,
in virtue of a religious or literary initiation, might
be expected to understand his symbolisms and
figures of speech. This is the case with religious
texts, private letters, and all those literary works
which form so large a part of the documents on
antiquity. Thus the art of recognising and deter-
mining hidden meanings in texts has always occu-
pied a large space in the theory of hermeneutic1
(which is Greek for interpretative criticism), and
in the exegesis of the sacred texts and of classical
authors.

The different modes of introducing an oblique
sense behind the literal sense are too varied, and
depend too much on special circumstances, for it
to be possible to reduce the art of detecting them
to definite rules. Only one general principle can
be laid down, and that is, that when the literal
sense is absurd, incoherent, or obscure, or in con-
tradiction with the ideas of the author or the facts
known to him, then we ought to presume an oblique
sense.

In order to determine this sense, the procedure
is the same as for studying the language of an
author : we compare the passages in which the
expressions occur in which we suspect an oblique
sense, and look to see whether there is not one

1 A. Boeckh, in the Encyclopaedic und Methodoloyie der philolo-
gischen Wissenschaften, second edition (1886), has given a theory of
hermeneutic to which Bernheim has been content to refer.

152

Interpretative Criticism

where the meaning may be guessed from the eon-
text. A celebrated instance of this procedure is the
discovery of the allegorical meaning of the Beast in
the Apocalypse. But as there is no certain method
of solving these problems, we never have a right to
say we have discovered all the hidden meanings or
seized all the allusions contained in a text ; and
even when we think we have found the sense, we
shall do well to draw no inferences from a necessarily
conjectural interpretation.

On the other hand, it is necessary to guard against
the temptation to look for allegorical meanings every-
where, as the neo-Platonists did in Plato's works and
the Swedenborgians in the Bible. This attack of
hyper-hermeneutic is now over, but we are not yet
safe from the analogous tendency to look for allusions
everywhere. Investigations of this kind are always
conjectural, and are better calculated to natter the
vanity of the interpreter than to furnish results of
which history can make use.

V. When we have at length reached the real
sense of the text, the operation of positive analysis
is concluded. Its result is to make us acquainted
with the author's conceptions, the images he had
in his mind, the general notions in terms of which
he represented the world to himself. This informa-
tion belongs to a Yery important branch of know-
ledge, out of which is constituted a whole group ol
historical sciences:1 the history of the illustrative
arts and of literature, the history of science, the

1 The method of extracting information on external facts from
a writer's conceptions forms part of the theory of constructive
reasoning. See book iii.

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Analytical Operations

history of philosophical and moral doctrine, mythology
and the history of dogmas (wrongly called religious
beliefs, because here we are studying official doctrines
without inquiring whether they are believed), the
history of law, the history of official institutions (so
far as we do not inquire how they were applied in
practice), the assemblage of popular legends, tradi-
tions, opinions, conceptions (inexactly called beliefs)
which are comprised under the name of folk-lore.

All these studies need only the external criticism
which investigates authorship and origin and inter-
pretative criticism ; they require one degree less
elaboration than the history of objective facts, and
accordingly they have been earlier established on a
methodical basis.

154

CHAPTER VII

THE NEGATIVE INTERNAL CRITICISM OF THE GOOD
FAITH AND ACCURACY OF AUTHORS

I. Analysis and positive interpretative criticism
only penetrate as far as the inward workings of the
mind of the author of a document, and only help us
to know his ideas. They give no direct information
about external facts. Even when the author was
able to observe them, his text only indicates how he
wished to represent them, not how he really saw
them, still less how they really happened. What
an author expresses is not always what he believed,
for he may have lied ; what he believed is not neces-
sarily what happened, for he may have been mistaken.
These propositions are obvious. And yet a first and
natural impulse leads us to accept as true every
statement contained in a document, which is equi-
valent to assuming that no author ever lied or was
deceived; and this spontaneous credulity seems to
possess a high degree of vitality, for it persists in
spite of the innumerable instances of error and men-
dacity which daily experience brings before us.

Reflection has been forced on historians in the
course of their work by the circumstance of their
finding documents which contradicted each other ;
in such cases they have been obliged to doubt, and,

l5S

Analytical Operations

after examination, to admit the existence of error or
mendacity ; thus negative criticism has appeared as
a practical necessity for the purpose of eliminating
statements which are obviously false or erroneous.
But the instinct of confidence is so indestructible
that it has hitherto prevented even those profession-
ally concerned from systematising the internal criti-
cism cf statements in the same way as the external
criticism which deals with the origin of documents
has been systematised. Historians, in their works,
and even theoretical writers on historical method,1
have been satisfied with common notions and vague
formulae in striking contrast with the precise ter-
minology of the critical investigation of sources.
They are content to examine whether the author
was roughly contemporary with the events, whether
he was an ocular witness, whether he was sincere and
well-informed, whether he knew the truth and desired
to tell it, or even — summing up the whole question
in a single formula — whether he was trustworthy.

This superficial criticism is certainly better than
no criticism at all, and has sufficed to give those
who have applied it the consciousness of incontest-
able superiority. But it is only a halfway-house
between common credulity and scientific method.
Here, as in every science, the starting-point must be
methodical doubt.2 All that has not been proved
must be temporarily regarded as doubtful ; no pro-

1 For example, Pere de Smedt, Tardif, Droysen, and even
Bernheim.

2 Descartes, who came at a time when history still consisted in
the reproduction of pre-existing narratives, did not see how to
apply methodical doubt to the subject ; he therefore refused to
allow it a place among the sciences.

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Negative Internal Criticism

position is to be affirmed unless reasons can be
adduced in favour of its truth. Applied to the
statements contained in documents, methodical doubt
becomes methodical distrust.

The historian ought to distrust a priori every
statement of an author, for he cannot be sure that
it is not mendacious or mistaken. At the best it
affords a presumption. For the historian to adopt
it and affirm it afresh on his own account implies
that he regards it as a scientific truth. To take
this decisive step is what he has no right to do
without good reasons. But the human mind is so
constituted that this step is often taken unconsciously
(cf. book ii. chap. i.). Against this dangerous ten-
dency criticism has only one means of defence. We
must not postpone doubt till it is forced upon us by
conflicting statements in documents ; we must begin
by doubting. We must never forget the interval
which separates a statement made by any author
whatsoever from a scientifically established truth,
so that we may continually keep in mind the
responsibility which we assume when we reproduce
a statement.

Even after we have accepted the principle and
resolved to apply this unnatural distrust in practice,
we tend instinctively to free ourselves from it as
soon as possible. The natural impulse is to perform
the criticism of the whole of an author, or at least
of the whole of a document, in the lump ; to divide
authorities into two categories, the sheep on the
right, the goats on the left ; on the one side trust-
worthy authors and good documents, on the other
suspected authors and bad documents. Having thus

*57

Analytical Operations

exhausted our powers of distrust, we proceed to
reproduce without discussion all the statements con-
tained in the "good document." We consent to
distrust suspected authors such as Suidas or Aimo,
but we affirm as established truth everything that
has been said by Thucydides or Gregory of Tours.1
We apply to authors that judicial procedure which
divides witnesses into admissible and inadmissible :
having once accepted a witness, we feel ourselves
bound to admit all his testimony ; we dare not doubt
any of his statements without a special reason. In-
stinctively we take sides with the author on whom
we have bestowed our approval, and we go so far as
to say, as in the law courts, that the burden of proof
rests with those who reject valid testimony.2

1 Fustel de Coulanges himself did not rise above this kind of
timidity. With reference to a speech attributed to Clovis by
Gregory of Tours, he says : " Doubtless we are unable to affirm that
these words were ever pronounced. But, all the same, we ought not
to affirm, in contradiction to Gregory of Tours, that they were not.
. . . The wisest course is to accept Gregory's text " (Monarchic
franque, p. 66). The wisest, or rather the only scientific course, is
to admit that we know nothing about the words of Clovis, for
Gregory himself had no knowledge of them.

2 Quite recently, E. Meyer, one of the most critically expert his-
torians of antiquity, has in his work, Die Entstehung des Judenthums
(Halle, 1896, 8vo), revived this strange juridical argument in favour
of the narrative of Nehemiah. M. Bouche-Leclercq, in a remarkable
study on "The Reign of Seleucus II. (Callinicus) and Historical
Criticism " (Revue des Universitis du Midi, April-June 1897), seems, by
way of reaction against the hypercriticism of Niebuhr and Droysen,
to incline towards an analogous theory : " Historical criticism, if it
is not to degenerate into agnosticism — which would be suicidal — or
into individual caprice, must place a certain amount of trust in
testimony which it cannot verify, as long as it is not flatly contra-
dicted by other testimony of equal value." M. Bouche-Leclercq is
right as against the historian who, " after having discredited all his
witnesses, claims to put himself in their place, and sees with their

158

Negative Internal Criticism

The confusion is still further increased by the use
of the word authentic, borrowed from judicial lan-
guage. It has reference to the origin only, not to
the contents ; to say that a document is authentic is
merely to say that its origin is certain, not that its
contents are free from error. But authenticity
inspires a degree of respect which disposes us to
accept the contents without discussion. To doubt
the statements of an authentic document would
seem presumptuous, or at least we think ourselves
bound to wait for overwhelming proof before we
impeach the testimony of the author.

II. These natural instincts must be methodically
resisted. A document (still more a literary work)
is not all of a piece ; it is composed of a great
number of independent statements, any one of which
may be intentionally or unintentionally false, while
the others are bond fide and accurate, or conversely,
since each statement is the outcome of a mental
operation which may have been incorrectly per-
formed, while others were performed correctly. It is
not, therefore, enough to examine a document as a
whole; each of the statements in it must be examined
separately ; criticism is impossible without analysis.

Thus internal criticism conducts us to two general
rules.

(i) A scientific truth is not established by testi-
mony. In order to affirm a proposition we must

eyes something quite different from what they themselves saw."
But when the " testimony " is insufficient to give us the scientific
knowledge of a fact, the only correct attitude is " agnosticisni,"
that is, a confession of ignorance ; we have no right to shirk this
confession because chance has permitted the destruction of the
documents which might have contradicted the testimony.

lS9

Analytical Operations

have special reasons for believing it true. It may
happen in certain cases that an authors statement
is a sufficient reason for belief; but we cannot know
that beforehand. The rule, then, will be to examine
each separate statement in order to make sure
whether it is of a nature to constitute a sufficient
reason for belief.

(2) The criticism of a document is not to be per-
formed en bloc. The rule will be to analyse the
document into its elements, in order to isolate the
different statements of which it is composed and
to examine each of them separately. Sometimes a
single sentence contains several statements ; they
must be separated and criticised one by one. In a
sale, for example, we distinguish the date, the place,
the vendor, the purchaser, the object, the price, and
each one of the conditions.

In practice, criticism and analysis are performed
simultaneously, and, except in the case of texts in
a difficult language, may proceed 'pari passu with
interpretative analysis and criticism. As soon as
we understand a phrase we analyse it and criticise
each of its elements.

It thus appears that logically criticism comprises
an enormous number of operations. In describing
them, with all the details necessary for the under-
standing of their mechanism and the reasons for
their employment, we are likely to give the impres-
sion of a procedure too slow to be practicable. Such
an impression is inevitably produced by every verbal
description of a complicated process. Compare the
time occupied in describing a movement in fenc-
ing with that required to execute it ; compare the

160

Negative Internal Criticism

tedium of the grammar and dictionary with the
rapidity of reading. Like every practical art, criti-
cism consists in the habit of performing certain acts.
In the period of apprenticeship, before the habit is
acquired, we are obliged to think of each act separ-
ately before performing it, and to analyse the move-
ments ; accordingly we perform them all slowly and
with difficulty ; but the habit once acquired, the acts,
which have now become instinctive and unconscious,
are performed with ease and rapidity. The reader
must therefore not be uneasy about the slowness of
the critical processes ; he will see later on how they
are abridged in practice.

III. The problem of criticism may be stated as
follows. Given a statement made by a man of
whose mental operations we have no experience, and
the value of the statement depending exclusively on
the manner in which these operations were per-
formed ; to ascertain whether these operations were
performed correctly. The mere statement of the
problem shows that we cannot hope for any direct
or definitive solution of it ; we lack the essential
datum, namely, the manner in which the author
performed the mental operations concerned. Criti-
cism therefore does not advance beyond indirect and
provisional solutions, and does no more than furnish
data which require a final elaboration.

A natural instinct leads us to judge of the value
of statements by their form. We think we can tell
at a glance whether an author is sincere or a narra-
tive accurate. We seek for what is called "the
accent of sincerity," or " an impression of truth."
This impression is almost irresistible, but it is none

161 L

Analytical Operations

the less an illusion. There is no external criterion
either of good faith or of accuracy. " The accent of
sincerity " is the appearance of conviction ; an orator,
an actor, an habitual liar will put more of it into his
lies than an undecided man into his statement of
what he believes to be the truth. Energy of affirma-
tion does not always mean strength of conviction,
but sometimes only cleverness or effrontery.1 Simi-
larly, abundance and precision of detail, though they
produce a vivid impression on unexperienced readers,
do not guarantee the accuracy of the facts ; 2 they
give us no information about anything but the
imagination of the author when he is sincere, or his
impudence when he is the reverse. We are apt to
say of a circumstantial narrative : " Things of this
kind are not invented." They are not invented, but
they are very easy to transfer from one person,
country, or time to another. There is thus no ex-
ternal characteristic of a document which can relieve
us of the obligation to criticise it.

The value of an author's statement depends solely
on the conditions under which he performed certain
mental operations. Criticism has no other resource

1 The "Memoirs. of Cardinal de Retz" furnish a conclusive in-
stance : the anecdote of the ghosts met by Retz and Turenne.
A. Feillet, who edited Retz in the Collection des Grands itcrivains de
la France, has shown (vol. i. p. 192) that this story, so vividly nar-
rated, is false from beginning to end.

2 A good example of the fascination exerted by a circumstantial
narrative is the legend respecting the origin of the League of the
three primitive Swiss cantons (Gessler and the Griitli conspirators),
which was fabricated by Tschudi in the sixteenth century, became
classical on the production of Schiller's "William Tell," and has
only been extirpated with the greatest difficulty. (See Rilliet,
Origines de la Confederation Suisse, Geneva, 1869, 8vo.)

l62

Negative Internal Criticism

than the examination of these conditions. But it is
not a case of reconstructing all of them ; it is enough
to answer a single question : did the author perform
these operations correctly or not ? The question
may be approached on two sides.

(i) The critical investigation of authorship has
often taught us the general conditions under which
the author operated. It is probable that some of
these influenced each one of the operations. We
ought therefore to begin by studying the informa-
tion we possess about the author and the com-
position of the document, taking particular pains
to look in the habits, sentiments, and personal
situation of the author, or in the circumstances in
which he composed, for all the reasons which could
have existed for incorrectness on the one hand, or
exceptional accuracy on the other. In order to
perceive these reasons it is necessary to be on the
lookout for them beforehand. The only method,
therefore, is to draw up a general set of questions
having reference to the possible causes of in-
accuracy. We shall then apply it to the general
conditions under which the document was com-
posed, in order to discover those causes which may
have rendered the author's mental operations in-
correct and vitiated the results. But all that we
shall thus obtain — even in the exceptionally favour-
able cases in which the conditions of origin are well
known — will be general indications, which will be
insufficient for the purposes of criticism, for criticism
must always deal with each separate statement.

(2) The criticism of particular statements is con-
fined to the use of a single method, which, by a

163

Analytical Operations

curious paradox, is the study of the universal
conditions under which documents are composed.
The information which is not furnished by the
general study of the author may be sought for by
a consideration of the necessary processes of the
human mind ; for, since these are universal, they
must appear in each particular case. We know
what are the cases in which men in general are
inclined to alter or distort facts. What we have
to do in the case of each statement is to examine
whether it was made under such circumstances as
to lead us to suspect, from our knowledge of the
habits of normal humanity, that the operations
implied in the making of it were incorrectly per-
formed. The practical procedure will be to draw
up a set of questions relating to the habitual
causes of inaccuracy.

The whole of criticism thus reduces to the draw-
ing up and answering of two sets of questions :
one for the purpose of bringing before our minds
those general conditions affecting the composition
of the document, from which we may deduce general
motives for distrust or confidence ; the other for
the purpose of realising the special conditions of
each statement, from which special motives may
be drawn for distrust or confidence. These two
sets of questions ought to be drawn up before-
hand in such a form as may enable us to examine
methodically both the document in general and
each statement in particular ; and as they are the
same for all documents, it is useful to formulate
them once for all.

IV. The critical process comprises two series of
164

Negative Internal Criticism

questions, which correspond to the two series of
operations by which the document was produced.
All that interpretative criticism tells us is what the
author meant ; it remains to determine ( i ) what he
really believed, for he may not have been sincere ;
(2) what he really knew, for he may have been
mistaken. We may therefore distinguish a critical
examination of the author s good faith, by which we
seek to determine whether the author of the docu-
ment lied or not, and a critical examination of his
accuracy, by which we seek to determine whether he
was or was not mistaken.

In practice we rarely need to know what an
author believed, unless we are making a special
study of his character. We have no direct interest
in the author ; he is merely the medium through
which we reach the external facts he reports. The
aim of criticism is to determine whether the author
has reported the facts correctly. If he has given
inexact information, it is indifferent whether he did
so intentionally or not ; to draw a distinction would
complicate matters unnecessarily. There is thus
little occasion to make a separate examination of an
author's good faith, and we may shorten our labours
by including in a single set of questions all the
causes which lead , to misstatement. But for the
sake of clearness it will be well to discuss the ques-
tions to be asked in two separate series.

The questions in the first series will help us
to inquire whether we have any reason to distrust
the sincerity of a statement. We ask whether the
author was in any of those situations which normally
incline a man to be insincere. We must ask what

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Analytical Operations

these situations are, both as affecting the general com-
position of a document, and as affecting each par-
ticular statement. Experience supplies the answer.
Every violation of truth, small or great, is due to a wish
on the part of the author to produce a particular
impression upon the reader. Our set of questions
thus reduces to a list of the motives which may,
in the general case, lead an author to violate truth.
The following are the most important cases : —

(i) The author seeks to gain a practical advan-
tage for himself; he wishes to deceive the reader of
the document, in order to persuade him to an action,
or to dissuade him from it ; he knowingly gives
false information : we then say the author has an
interest in deceiving. This is the case with most
official documents. Even in documents which have
not been composed for a practical purpose, every
interested statement has a chance of being men-
dacious. In order to determine which statements
are to be suspected, we are to ask what can have
been the general aim of the author in writing the
document as a whole ; and again, what can have
been his particular purpose in making each of the
separate statements which compose the document.
But there are two natural tendencies to be resisted.
The first is, to ask what interest the author could
have had in lying, meaning what interest should
we have had in his place ; we must ask instead what
interest can he have thought he had in lying, and
we must look for the answer in his tastes and ideals.
The other tendency is to take sole account of the
individual interest of the author; we ought, how-
ever, to remember that the author may have given

166

Negative Internal Criticism

false information in order to serve a collective in-
terest. This is one of the difficulties of criticism.
An author is a member at one and the same time
of several different groups, a family, a province, a
country, a religious denomination, a political party,
a class in society, whose interests often conflict ; we
have to discover the group in which he took most
interest, and for which he worked.

(2) The author was placed in a situation which
compelled him to violate truth. This happens
whenever he has to draw up a document in con-
formity with rule or custom, while the actual cir-
cumstances are in some point or other in conflict
with rule or custom ; he is then obliged to state
that the conditions were normal, and thus make
a false declaration in respect of all the irregularities.
In nearly every report of proceedings there is some
slight deviation from truth as to the day, the hour,
the place, the number or the names of those
present. Most of us have observed, if not taken
part in, some of these petty fictions. But we are
too apt to forget them when we come to criticise
documents relating to the past. The authentic char-
acter of the documents contributes to the illusion ;
we instinctively make authentic a synonym of sincere.
The rigid rules which govern the composition of
every authentic document seem to guarantee sin-
cerity ; they are, on the contrary, an incentive to
falsify, not the main facts, but the accessory circum-
stances. From the fact of a person having signed a
report we may infer that he agreed to it, but not
that he was actually present at the time when the
report mentions him as having been present.

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Analytical Operations

(3) The author viewed with sympathy or anti-
pathy a group of men (nation, party, denomination,
province, city, family), or an assemblage of doctrines
or institutions (religion, school of philosophy, poli-
tical theory), and was led to distort facts in such a
manner as to represent his friends in a favourable
and his opponents in an unfavourable light. These
are instances of a general bias which affects all the
statements of an author, and they are so obvious
that the ancients perceived them and gave them
names {stadium and odium) ; from ancient times it
has been a literary commonplace for historians to
protest that they have steered clear of both.

(4) The author was induced by private or collec-
tive vanity to violate truth for the purpose of
exalting himself or his group. He made such
statements as he thought likely to give the reader
the impression that he and his possessed qualities
deserving of esteem. We have therefore to inquire
whether a given statement may not be influenced
by vanity. But we must take care not to represent
the author's vanity to ourselves as being exactly
like our own vanity or that of our contemporaries.
Different people are vain for different reasons ; we
must inquire what was our author's particular
vanity ; he may have lied in order to attribute to
himself or his friends actions which we should con-
sider dishonourable. Charles IX. falsely boasted of
having organised the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
There is, however, a kind of vanity which is universal,
and that is, the desire to appear to be a person of
exalted rank playing an important part in affairs.
We must, therefore, always distrust a statement

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Negative Internal Criticism

which attributes to the author or his group a high
place in the world.1

(5) The author desired to please the public, or at
least to avoid shocking it. He has expressed senti-
ments and ideas in harmony with the morality or the
fashion of his public ; he has distorted facts in order
to adapt them to the passions and prejudices of his
time, even those which he did not share. The
purest types of this kind of falsehood are found
in ceremonial forms, official formulae, declarations
prescribed by etiquette, set speeches, polite phrases.
The statements which come under this head are so
open to suspicion that we are unable to derive from
them any information about the facts stated. We
are all aware of this so far as relates to the contem-
porary formulae of which we see instances every day,
but we often forget it in the criticism of documents,
especially those belonging to an age from which
few documents have come down to us. No one
would think of looking for the real sentiments
of a man in the assurances of respect with which
he ends his letters.. But people believed for a
long time in the humility of certain ecclesiastical
dignitaries of the middle ages, because, on the
day of their election, they began by refusing an
office of which they declared themselves un-
worthy, till at last comparison showed that this
refusal was a mere conventional form. And there
are still scholars who, like the Benedictines of the
eighteenth century, look in the chancery- formulae

1 Striking examples of falsehoods due to vanity are to be found
in abundance in the Economies royales of Sully and the Memoires of
Retz.

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Analytical Operations

of a prince for information as to his piety or his
liberality.1

In order to recognise these conventional declara-
tions there are two lines of general study to be
pursued : the one is directed to the author, and
seeks to discover what was the public he addressed,
for in one and the same country there are usually
several different publics, each of which has its own
code of morals or propriety; the other is directed
towards the public, and seeks to determine its
morals or its manners.

(6) The author endeavoured to please the public
by literary artifices.. He distorted facts in order
to embellish them according to his own aesthetic
notions. We have therefore to look for the ideal of
the author or of his time, in order to be on our guard
against passages distorted to suit that ideal. But
without special study we may calculate on the
common kinds of literary distortion. Rhetorical
distortion consists in attributing to persons noble
attitudes, acts, sentiments, and, above all, words:
this is a natural tendency in young boys who are
beginning to practise the art of composition, and in
writers still in a semi-barbarous stage ; it is the
common defect of the mediaeval chroniclers.2 Epic

1 Fustel de Coulanges himself went to the formulae of the inscrip-
tions in honour of the emperors for a proof that the peoples liked
the imperial regime. "If we read the inscriptions, the sentiment
which they exhibit is always one of satisfaction and gratitude. . . .
See the collection of Orelli, the most frequent expressions are . . ."
And the enumeration of the titles of respect given to the emperors
ends with this strange aphorism : " It would show ignorance of
human nature to see nothing but flattery in all this." There is not
even flattery here ; there is nothing but formulae.

2 Suger, in his life of Louis VI., is a model of this type.

I70

Negative Internal Criticism

distortion embellishes the narrative by adding pic-
turesque details, speeches delivered by the persons
concerned, numbers, sometimes names of persons ;
it is dangerous, because the precision of the details
produces an illusive appearance of truth.1 Dramatic
distortion consists in grouping the facts in such a
way as to enhance the dramatic effect by concen-
trating facts, which in reality were separate, upon a
single moment, a single person, or a single group.
Writing of this kind is what we call " truer than the
truth." It is the most dangerous form of distortion,
the form employed by artistic historians, by Hero-
dotus, Tacitus, the Italians of the Renaissance.
Lyrical distortion exaggerates the intensity of the
sentiments and the emotions of the author and his
friends : we should remember this when we attempt
to reconstruct " the psychology " of a person.

Literary distortion does not much affect archives
(though instances of it are found in most charters of
the eleventh century) ; but it profoundly modifies all
literary texts, including the narratives of historians.
Now, the natural tendency is to trust writers more
readily when they 'have talent, and to admit state-
ments with less difficulty when they are presented
in good literary form. Criticism must counteract
this tendency by the application of the paradoxical
rule, that the more interesting a statement is from
the artistic point of view,2 the more it ought to be
suspected. We must distrust every narrative which

1 The Ohronicon Helveticum of Tschudi is a striking instance.

2 Aristophanes and Demosthenes are two striking examples of
the power great writers have of paralysing critics and obscuring
facts. Not till the close of the nineteenth century has any one
ventured to recognise frankly their lack of good faith.

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Analytical Operations

is very picturesque or very dramatic, in which the
personages assume noble attitudes or manifest great
intensity of feeling.

This first series -of questions will yield the pro-
visional result of enabling us to note the statements
which have a chance of being mendacious.

Y. The second series of questions will be of use
in determining whether there is any reason to dis-
trust the accuracy of a statement. Was the author
in one of those situations which cause a man to
make mistakes ? As in dealing with good faith, we
must look for these conditions both as affecting the
document as a whole, and as affecting each of the
particular statements in it.

The practice of the established sciences teaches
us the conditions of an exact knowledge of facts.
There is only one scientific procedure for gaining
knowledge of a fact, namely, observation ; every state-
ment, therefore, must rest, directly or indirectly,
upon an observation, and this observation must have
been made correctly.

The set of questions by the aid of which we
investigate the probabilities of error may be drawn
up in the light of experience, which brings before
us the most common cases of error.

(i) The author was in a situation to observe the
fact, and supposed he really had observed it ; he
was, however, prevented from doing so by some
interior force of which he was unconscious, an
hallucination, an illusion, or a mere prejudice. It
would be useless, as well as impossible, to determine
which of these agencies was at work ; it is enough
to ascertain whether the author had a tendency to

172

Negative Internal Criticism

observe badly. It is scarcely possible in the case
of a particular statement to recognise that it was
the result of an hallucination or an illusion. At
the most we may learn, either from information
derived from other sources or by comparison, that
an author had a general propensity to this kind of
error.

There is a better chance of recognising whether a
statement was due to prejudice. In the life or the
works of an author we may find the traces of his
dominant prejudices. With reference to each of his
particular statements, we ought to ask whether it is
not the result of a preconceived idea of the author
on a class of men or a kind of facts. This inquiry
partly coincides with the search for motives of false-
hood : interest, vanity, sympathy, and antipathy give
rise to prejudices which alter the truth in the same
manner as wilful falsehood. We therefore employ
the questions already formulated for the purpose of
testing good faith. But there is one to be added.
In putting forward a statement has the author been
led to distort it unconsciously by the circumstance
that he was answering a question ? This is the case
of all statements obtained by interrogating witnesses.
Even apart from the cases where the person interro-
gated seeks to please the proposer of the question by
giving an answer which he thinks will be agreeable
to him, every question suggests its own answer, or
at least its form, and this form is dictated before-
hand by some one unacquainted with the facts. It
is therefore necessary to apply a special criticism to
every statement obtained by interrogation ; we must
ask what was the question put, and what were the

i-73

Analytical Operations

preconceptions to which it may have given rise in
the mind of the person interrogated.

(2) The author was badly situated for observing.
The practice of the sciences teaches us what are
the conditions for correct observation. The observer
ought to be placed where he can see correctly, and
should have no practical interest, no desire to obtain
a particular result, no preconceived idea about the
result. He ou^ht to record the observation im-
mediately, in a precise system of notation ; he ought
to give a precise indication of his method. These
conditions, which are insisted on in the sciences of
observation, are never completely fulfilled by the
authors of documents.

It would be useless, therefore, to ask whether
there have been chances of inaccuracy ; there always
have been, and it is just this that distinguishes a
document from an observation. It only remains to
look for the obvious causes of error in the conditions
of observation : to inquire whether the observer was
in a place where he could not see or hear well, as
would be the case, for example, with a subordinate
who should presume to narrate the secret delibera-
tions of a council of dignitaries ; whether his atten-
tion was greatly distracted by the necessity for action,
as it would be on the field of battle, for example;
whether he was inattentive because the facts had
little interest for him ; whether he lacked the
special experience or general intelligence necessary
for understanding the facts; whether he analysed
his impressions badly, or confused different events.
Above all, we must ask when he ivrote down what he
saw or heard. This is the most important point :

*74

Negative Internal Criticism

the only exact observation is the one which is re-
corded immediately it is made ; such is the constant
procedure in the established sciences ; an impression
committed to writing later on is only a recollection,
liable to be confused in the memory with other
recollections. Memoirs written several years after
the facts, often at the very end of the author's
career, have introduced innumerable errors into his-
tory. It must be made a rule to treat memoirs with
special distrust, as second-hand documents, in spite of
their appearance of being contemporary testimony.

(3) The author states facts which he could have
observed, but to which he did not take the trouble
to attend. From idleness or negligence he reported
details which he has merely inferred, or even imagined
at random, and which turn out to be false. This is
a common source of error, though it does not readily
occur to one, and is to be suspected wherever the
author was obliged to procure information in which
he took little interest, in order to fill up a blank form.
Of this kind are answers to questions put by an
authority (it is enough to observe how most official
inquiries are conducted in our own day), and detailed
accounts of ceremonies or public functions. There
is too strong a temptation to write the account from
the programme, or in agreement with the usual order
of the proceedings. How many accounts of meetings
of all kinds have been published by reporters who were
not present at them ! Similar efforts of imagina-
tion are suspected — sometimes, it is thought, clearly
recognised — in the writings of medineval chroniclers.1

1 For example, the account of the election of Otto I. in the Qeata
Ottonis of Wittekind.

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Analytical Operations

The rule, then, will be to distrust all narratives
conforming too closely to a set formula.

(4) The fact stated is of such a nature that it
could not have been learnt by observation alone.
It may be a hidden fact — a private secret, for ex-
ample. It may be a fact relating to a collectivity,
and applying to an extensive area or a long period
of time ; for example, the common act of a whole
army, a custom common to a whole people or a whole
age, a statistical total obtained by the addition of
numerous items. It may be a comprehensive judg-
ment on the character of a man, a group, a custom,
an event. Here we have to do with propositions
derived from observations by synthesis or inference :
the author can only have arrived at them indirectly ;
he began with data furnished by observation, and
elaborated them by the logical processes of abstraction,
generalisation, reasoning, calculation. Two questions
arise. Does it appear that the author had sufficient
data to work upon ? Was he accurate, or the reverse,
in his use of the data he had ?

On the probable inaccuracies of an author, general
indications may be obtained from an examination of
his writings. This examination will show us how
he worked : whether he was capable of abstraction,
reasoning, generalisation, and what were the mis-
takes he was in the habit of making. In order to
determine the value of the data, we must criticise
each statement separately; we must imagine the
conditions under which the author observed, and
ask ourselves whether he was able to procure the
necessary data for his statement. This is an in-
dispensable precaution in dealing with large totals

176

Negative Internal Criticism

in statistics and descriptions of popular usages ; for
it is possible that the author may have obtained the
total he gives by a process of conjectural valuation
(this is the ordinary practice in stating the number
of combatants or killed in a battle), or by combining
subsidiary totals, all of which were not accurate ; it
is possible that he may have extended to a whole
people, a whole country, a whole period, that which
was true only of a small group known to him.1

VI. These two first series of questions bearing on
the good faith and the accuracy of the statements
in the document are based on the supposition that
the author has observed the fact himself, This is a
feature common to all reports of observations in the
established sciences. But in history there is so
great a dearth of direct observations, of even moderate
value, that we are obliged to turn to account docu-
ments which every other science would reject.2
Take any narrative at random, even if it be the
work of a contemporary, it will be found that the
facts observed by the author are never more than a
part of the whole number. In nearly every docu-
ment the majority of the statements do not come
from the author at first hand, but are reproductions
of the statements of others. Even where a general
relates a battle in which he commanded, he does
not communicate his own observations, but those of

1 For example, the statistics on the population, the commerce,
and the wealth of European countries given by the Venetian
ambassadors of the sixteenth century, and the descriptions of the
usages of the Germans in the Germania of Tacitus.

2 It would be interesting to examine how much of Roman or
Merovingian history would be left if we rejected all documents
but those which represent direct observation.

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Analytical Operations

his officers; his narrative is in a large measure a
" second-hand document." 1

In order to criticise a second-hand statement it is
no longer enough to examine the conditions under
which the author of the document worked : this
author is, in such a case, a mere agent of trans-
mission ; the true author is the person who supplied
him the information. The critic, therefore, must
change his ground, and ask whether the informant
observed and reported correctly ; and if he too had
the information from some one else (the commonest
case), the chase must be pursued from one inter-
mediary to another, till the person is found who
first launched the statement on its career, and with
regard to him the question must be asked : Was he
an accurate observer ?

Logically such a search is not inconceivable;
ancient collections of Arab traditions give lists of
their successive guarantors. But, in practice, lack of
documents nearly always prevents us from getting
as far as the observer of a fact ; the observation
remains anonymous. A general question then pre-
sents itself: How are we to criticise an anonymous
statement ? It is not only " anonymous documents "

1 It will be seen why we have not separately defined and studied
"first-hand documents." The question has not been raised in the
proper manner in historical practice. The distinction ought to
apply to statements, not to documents. It is not the document
which comes to us at first, second, or third hand; it is the state-
ment. What is called a "first-hand document" is nearly always
composed in part of second-hand statements about facts of which
the author had no personal knowledge. The name " second-hand
document1' is given to those which, like the work of Livy, contain
nothing first-hand ; but the distinction is too crude to serve as a
guide in the critical examination of statements.

178.

Negative Internal Criticism

with which we are concerned, where the composition
as a whole is the work of an unknown author ; even
when the author is known, this question arises with
respect to each statement of his drawn from an
unknown source.

Criticism works by reproducing the conditions
under which an author wrote, and has hardly any-
thing to take hold of where a statement is anony-
mous. The only method left is to examine the
general conditions of the document. We may in-
quire whether there is any feature common to all
the statements of a document indicating that they
all proceed from persons having the same prejudices
or passions: in this case the tradition followed by
the author is biassed ; the tradition followed by
Herodotus has both an Athenian bias and a
Delphic bias. In respect of each fact derived from
such a tradition we must ask whether it has not
been distorted by the interest, the vanity, or the
prejudices of the group concerned. We may even
ignore the author, and ask whether there was any-
thing likely to make for or against correct observa-
tion, common to all the men of the time and
country in which the observation must have been
made : for example, what means of information, and
what prejudices, had the Greeks of Herodotus' time
with respect to the Scythians.

The most useful of all these general inquiries has
reference to that mode of transmitting anonymous
statements which is called tradition. No second-
hand statement has any value except in so far as it
reproduces its source ; every addition is an alteration,
and ought to be eliminated. Similarly, all the inter-

x79

Analytical Operations

mediary sources are valueless except as copies of the
original statement founded directly on observation.
The critic needs to know whether this transmission
from hand to hand has preserved or distorted the
original statement ; above all, whether the tradition
embodied in the document was written or oral.
Writing fixes a statement, and ensures its being
transmitted faithfully ; when a statement is com-
municated orally, the impression in the mind of the
hearer is apt to be modified by confusion with other
impressions ; in passing from one intermediary to
another the statement is modified at every step,1
and as these modifications arise from different
causes, there is no possibility of measuring or cor-
recting them.

Oral tradition is by its nature a process of con-
tinual alteration ; hence in the established sciences
only written transmission is accepted. Historians
have no avowable motive for proceeding differently,
at any rate when it is a case of establishing a parti-
cular fact. We must therefore search documents
for statements derived from oral tradition in order
that we may suspect them. We rarely have direct
information as to statements being thus derived ;
authors who borrow from oral tradition are not
anxious to proclaim the fact.2 There is thus only

1 There is much less modification where the oral tradition assumes
a regular or striking form, as is the case with verses, maxims,
proverbs.

2 Sometimes the form of the phrase tells its own tale, when, in
the midst of a detailed narrative, obviously of legendary origin, we
come across a curt, dry entry in annalistic style, obviously copied
from a written document. That is what we find in Livv (see Nitzsch,
Die romische Annulistih, Leipzig, 1873, 8vo), and in Gregory of Tours
(see Loebell, Grcgor von Tours, Leipzig, 1868, 8vo).

l80

Negative Internal Criticism

an indirect method, and that is to ascertain that
written transmission was impossible ; we may then be
sure that the fact reached the author only by oral
tradition. We have therefore to ask the question :
In this period and in this group of men was it custo-
mary to commit to writing facts of this kind ? If
the answer is negative, the fact considered rests on
oral tradition alone.

The most striking form of oral tradition is legend.
It arises among groups of men with whom the spoken
word is the only means of transmission, in barbarous
societies, or in classes of little culture, such as pea-
sants or soldiers. In this case it is the whole group
of facts which is transmitted orally and assumes the
legendary form. There is a legendary period in the
early history of every people : in Greece, at Rome,
among the Germanic and Slavonic races, the most
ancient memories of the people form a stratum of
legend. In periods of civilisation popular legends
continue to exist in reference to events which strike
the imagination of the people.1 Legend is exclusively
oral tradition.

When a people has emerged from the legendary
period and begun to commit its history to writing,
oral tradition does not come to an end, but only
applies to a narrower sphere ; it is now restricted to

1 The events which strike the popular imagination and are trans-
mitted by legend are not generally those which seem to us the most
important. The heroes of the chansons de gestes are hardly known
historically. The Breton epic songs relate, not to the great histo-
rical events, as Villemarque's collection led people to believe, but to
obscure local episodes. The same holds of the Scandinavian sagas ;
for the most part they relate to quarrels among the villagers of
Iceland or the Orkneys.

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Analytical Operations

facts which are not registered, whether because they
are by their nature secret, or because no one takes
the trouble to record them, such as private actions,
words, the details of events. Thus arise anecdotes,
which have been named " the legends of civilised
society." Like legends they have their origin in
confused recollections, allusions, mistaken interpreta-
tions, imaginings of all kinds which fasten upon
particular persons and events.

Legends and anecdotes are at bottom mere
popular beliefs, arbitrarily attached to historical
personages ; they belong to folk-lore, not to history.1
We must therefore guard against the temptation to
treat legend as an alloy of accurate facts and errors
out of which it is possible by analysis to extract
grains of historical truth. A legend is a conglome-
rate in which there may be some grains of truth,
and which may even be capable of being analysed
into its elements; but there is no means of dis-
tinguishing the elements taken from reality from
those which are the work of imagination. To
use Niebuhr's expression, a legend is "a mirage
produced by an invisible object according to an
unknown law of refraction."

The crudest analytical procedure consists in
rejecting those details in the legendary narrative
which appear impossible, miraculous, contradictory,
or absurd, and retaining the rational residue as his-
torical. This is how the Protestant rationalists of
the eighteenth century treated biblical narratives.

1 The theory of legend is one of the most advanced parts of
criticism. Bernheim (in his Lehrbuch, pp. 380-90) gives a good
summary and a bibliography of it.

182

Negative Internal Criticism

One might as well amputate the marvellous part of
a fairy tale, suppress Puss in Boots, and keep the
Marquis of Carabas as an historical character. A
more refined but r "ss dangerous method is to
compare different legends in order to deduce their
common historical basis. Grote1 has shown, with
reference to Greek tradition, that it is impossible to
extract any trustworthy information from legend by
any process whatever.2 We must make up our
minds to treat legend as a product of imagination;
we may look in it for a people's conceptions, not for
the external facts in that people's history. The rule
will be to reject every statement of legendary origin ;
nor does this apply only to narratives in legendary
form : a narrative which has an historical appear-
ance, but is founded on the data of legend, the
opening chapters of Thucydides for example, ought
equally to be discarded.

In the case of written transmission it remains to
inquire whether the author reproduced his source
without altering it. This inquiry forms part of the
critical investigation of the sources,3 so far as it can
be pursued by a comparison of texts. But when the
source has disappeared we are reduced to internal
criticism. We ask, first of all, whether the author
can have had exact information, otherwise his state-

1 " History of Greece," vols. i. and ii. Compare Renan, Histoire
du peuple d Israel, vol. i. (Paris, 1887, 8vo), Introduction.

2 And yet Niebuhr made use of the Roman legends to construct
a theory, which it was afterwards necessary to demolish, of the
struggle between the patricians and the plebeians ; and Curtius,
twenty years after Grote, looked for historical facts in the Greek
legends.

3 See supra, pp. 93 sqq.

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Analytical Operations

ineiit is valueless. We next put to ourselves the
general question : Was the author in the habit of
altering his sources, and in what manner ? And in
regard to each separate second-hand statement we
ask whether it has the appearance of being an exact
reproduction or an arrangement. We judge by the
form : when we meet with a passage whose style is
out of harmony with the main body of the com-
position, we have before us a fragment of an earlier
document; the more servile the reproduction the
more valuable is the passage, for it can contain no
exact information beyond what was already in the
source.

VII. In spite of all these investigations, criticism
never succeeds in determining the parentage of all
the statements to the extent of finding out who it
was that observed, or even recorded, each fact. In
most cases the inquiry ends in leaving the state-
ment anonymous.

We are thus confronted with a fact, observed we
know not by whom nor how, recorded we know not
when nor how. No other science accepts facts
which come in such a condition, without possibi-
lity of verification, subject to incalculable chances
of error. But history can turn them to account,
because it does not, like the other sciences, need a
supply of facts which are difficult to ascertain.

The notion of a fact, when we come to examine
it precisely, reduces to an affirmative judgment
having reference to external reality. The operations
by which we arrive at such a judgment are more
or less difficult, and the risk of error is greater
or smaller according to the nature of the realities

184

Negative Internal Criticism

investigated and the degree of precision with which
we wish to formulate them. Chemistry and biology
need to discern facts of a delicate order, rapid move-
ments, transient states, and to measure them in
exact figures. History can work with facts of a
much coarser kind, spread over a large extent of
space or time, such as the existence of a custom,
of a man, of a group, even of a people ; and these
facts may be roughly expressed in vague words
conveying no idea of accurate measurement. With
such easily observed facts as these to deal with,
history can afford to be much less exacting with
regard to the conditions of observation. The im-
perfection of the means of information is compen-
sated by a natural faculty of being satisfied with
information which can easily be obtained.

Documents supply little else besides ill-verified
facts, subject to many risks of falsehood or error.
But there are some facts in respect of which it is
very difficult to lie or be mistaken. The last series
of questions which the critic should ask is intended
to distinguish, in the mass of alleged facts, those
which by their nature are little subject to the risk
of alteration, and which are therefore very probably
correct. We know what, in general, are the classes
of facts which enjoy this privilege; we are thus
enabled to draw up a list of questions for general
use, and in applying them to any particular case we
ask whether the fact in question comes under any
of the heads specified in advance.

(i) The fact is of a nature to render falsehood
improbable. A man lies in order to produce an
impression, and has no motive to lie in a case

i85

Analytical Operations

where he believes that the false impression would
be of no use, or that the falsehood would be in-
effectual. In order to determine whether the author
was in such a situation there are several questions
to be asked.

(a) Is the fact stated manifestly prejudicial to the
effect which the author wished to produce ? Does
it run counter to the interest, the vanity, the senti-
ments, the literary tastes of the author and his
group ; or to the opinions which he made a point
of not offending ? In such a case there is a pro-
bability of good faith. But in the application of
this criterion there is danger; it has often been
wrongly used, and in two ways. One of these is
to take for a confession what was meant for a boast,
as the declaration of Charles IX. that he was re-
sponsible for the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Or
again, we trust without examination an Athenian
who speaks ill of the Athenians, or a Protestant
who accuses other Protestants. But it is quite
possible the author's notions of his interest or
honour were very different from ours ; 2 or he may
have wished to calumniate fellow-citizens who did
not belong to his own party, or co-religionists who
did not belong to his own sect. This criterion
must therefore be restricted to cases where we
know exactly what effect he wished to produce, and
in what group he was mainly interested.

(b) Was the fact stated so obviously known to the
public that the author, even if tempted to falsehood,
would have been restrained by the certainty of being
detected ? This is the case with facts which are

1 Of. supra, p. 1 66.

186

Negative Internal Criticism

easy to verify, which are not remote in point of time
or space, which apply to a wide area or a long period,
especially if the public had any interest in verifying
them. But the fear of detection is only an intermittent
check, opposed by interest whenever the author has
any motive for deceiving. It acts unequally on
different minds — strongly on men of culture and
self-control who understand their public, feebly in
barbarous ages and on passionate men.1 This
criterion, therefore, is to be restricted to cases where
we know what idea the author had of his readers,
and whether he was, dispassionate enough to keep
them in mind.

(c) Was the fact stated indifferent to the author,
so that he had no temptation to misrepresent it ?
This is the case with facts of a general kind, usages,
institutions, objects, persons, which the author men-
tions incidentally. A narrative, even a false one,
cannot be composed exclusively of falsehoods; the
author must localise his facts, and needs to surround
them with a framework of truth. The facts which
form this framework had no interest for him; at
that time every one knew them. But for us they
are instructive, and we can depend on them, for
the author had no intention of deceiving us.

(2) The fact was of a kind to render error
improbable. Numerous as the chances of error
are, still there are facts so " big " it is hard to
be mistaken about them. We have, then, to ask

1 It is often said, " The author would not have dared to write this
if it had not been true." This argument does not apply to societies
in a low state of civilisation. Louis VIII. dared to write that John
Lackland had been condemned by the verdict of his peers.

187

Analytical Opekations

whether the alleged fact was easy to ascertain :
(a) Did it cover a long period of time, so that it
must have been frequently observed ? Take, for
example, the case of a monument, a man, a custom,
an event which was in progress for a considerable
time, (b) Did it cover a wide area, so that many
people observed it ? — as, for example, a battle, a
war, a custom common to a whole people. (c) Is
it expressed in such general terms that superficial
observation was enough to discover it ? — as the
mere existence of a man, a city, a people, a custom.
Facts of this large and general kind make up the
bulk of historical knowledge.

(3) The fact was of such a nature that it would
not have been stated unless it was true. A man
does not declare that he has seen, something con-
trary to his expectations and habits of mind unless
observation has compelled him to admit it. A fact
which seems very improbable to the man who relates
it has a good chance of being true. We have, then,
to ask whether the fact stated was in contradiction
with the author's opinions, whether it is a phenomenon
of a kind unknown to him, an action or a custom
which seems unintelligible to him; whether it is a
saying whose import transcends his intelligence, such
as the sayings of Christ reported in the Gospels, or
the answers made by Joan of Arc to questions put
to her in the course of her trial. But we must guard
against judging of the author's ideas by our own
standards : when men who are accustomed to believe
in the marvellous speak of monsters, of miracles, of
wizards, there is nothing in these to contradict their
expectations, and the criterion does not apply.

188

Negative Internal Criticism

VIII. We have at last reached the end of this
description of the critical operations ; its length is due
to the necessity of describing successively operations
which are performed simultaneously. We will now
consider how these methods are applied in practice.

If the text be one whose interpretation is debat-
able, the examination is divided into two stages : the
first comprises the reading of the text with a view
to the determination of the meaning, wichout at-
tempting to draw any information from it ; the second
comprises the critical study of the facts contained in
the document. In the case of documents whose
meaning is clear, we may begin the critical examina-
tion on the first reading, reserving for separate study
any individual passages of doubtful meaning.

We begin by collecting the general information we
possess about the document and the author, with the
special purpose of discovering the conditions which
may have influenced the production of the docu-
ment— the epoch, the place, the purpose, the cir-
cumstances of its composition ; the author's social
status, country, party, sect, family, interests, passions,
prejudices, linguistic habits, methods of work, means
of information, culture, abilities, and mental defects;
the nature of the facts and the mode of their trans-
mission. Information on all these points is supplied
by the preparatory critical investigation of author-
ship and sources. We now combine the different
heads, mentally applying the set of general critical
questions ; this should be done at the outset, and
the results impressed on the memory, for they will
need to be present to the mind during the remainder
of the operations.

189

Analytical Operations

Thus prepared, we attack the document. As we
read we mentally analyse it, destroying all the
author's combinations, discarding all his literary
devices, in order to arrive .at the facts, which we
formulate in simple and precise language. We thus
free ourselves from the deference imposed by artistic
form, and from all submission to the author's ideas
— an emancipation without which criticism is im-
possible.

•The document thus analysed resolves into a long
series of the author's conceptions and statements as
to facts.

With regard to each statement, we ask ourselves
whether there is a probability of their being false or
erroneous, or whether, on the other hand, there are
exceptional chances in favour of good faith and
accuracy, working through the list of critical ques-
tions prepared for particular cases. This list of
questions must be always present to the mind. At
first it may seem cumbersome, perhaps pedantic ;
but as it will be applied more than a hundred times
in each page of the document, it will in the end
be used unconsciously. As we read a text, all
the reasons for distrust or confidence will occur to
the mind simultaneously, combined into a single
impression.

Analysis and critical questioning will then have
become a matter of instinct, and we shall have
acquired for ever that methodically analytical, dis-
trustful, not too respectful turn of mind which is
often mystically called " the critical sense," but
which is nothing else than an unconscious habit of
criticism.

190

CHAPTER VIII

THE DETERMINATION OF PARTICULAR FACTS

Critical analysis yields in the result a number of
conceptions and statements, accompanied by com-
ments on the probability of the facts stated being
accurate. It remains to examine how we can
deduce from these materials those particular his-
torical facts which are to form the basis of scientific
knowledge. Conceptions and statements are two
different kinds of results, and must be treated by
different methods.

I. Every conception which is expressed in writing
or by any illustrative representation is 'in itself a
definite, unimpeachable fact. That which is ex-
pressed must have first been present in the mind
of some one— if not in that of the author, who may
have reproduced a formula he did not understand
then m the mind of the man who originated the
formula. The existence of a conception may be
learnt from a single instance and proved from a
single document. Analysis and interpretation are
thus sufficient for the purpose of drawing up the
complete list of those facts which form the basis of
the history of the arts, the sciences, or of doctrines.1
1 See above, p. 153. Similarly, the particular facts which com-

lw ^Ir^ ?ufT8 ^a^P^ Hustle science) are
directly established by the analysis of the document

191

Analytical Operations

It is the task of external criticism to localise these
facts by determining the epoch, the country, the
author of each conception. The duration, geo-
graphical distribution, origin, and filiation of con-
ceptions belong to historical synthesis. Internal
criticism has nothing to do here ; the fact is taken
directly from the document.

We may advance a step farther. In themselves
conceptions are nothing but facts in psychology ;
but imagination does not create its objects, it takes
the elements of them from reality. Descriptions of
imaginary facts are constructed out of the real facts
which the author has observed in his experience.
These elements of knowledge, the raw material of
the imaginary description, may be sought for and
isolated. In dealing with periods and with classes
of facts for which documents are rare — antiquity, for
example, and the usages of private life — the attempt
has been made to lay under contribution works of
literature, epic poems, novels, plays.1 The method
is legitimate, but only within the limits of certain
restrictions which one is very apt to forget.

(i) It does not apply to social facts of a psy-
chological order, the moral or artistic standards
of a society ; the moral and sesthetic conceptions
in a document give at most the individual stan-
dards of the author ; we have no right to conclude
from these to the morals or the aesthetic tastes
of the age. We must at least wait till we have

1 Primitive Greece has been studied in the Homeric poems.
Mediaeval private life has been reconstructed principally from the
chansons de gestes. (See C. V. Langlois, Lcs Traditions sur Vhistoire de
la societe francaise au vwyen dye d'apres lcs sources litteraires, in the
Revue historique, March- April, 1897.)

192

The Determination of Particular Facts

compared several different authors of the same
period.

(2) Descriptions even of physical facts and objects
may be products of the author's imagination. It
is only the elements of them which we know to be
certainly real ; all that we can assert is the separate
existence of the irreducible elements, form, material,
colour, number. When the poet speaks of golden
gates or silver bucklers, we cannot infer that golden
gates and silver bucklers ever existed in reality;
nothing is certain beyond the separate existence
of gates, bucklers, gold, and silver. The analysis
must therefore be carried to the point of distin-
guishing those elements which the author must
necessarily have taken from experience : objects,
their purpose, ordinary actions.

(3) The conception of an object or an action
proves that it existed, but not that it was common ;
the object or action may have been unique, or re-
stricted to a very small circle; poets and novelists
are fond of taking their models from an exceptional
world.

(4) The facts yielded by this method are not
localised in space or time ; the author may have
taken them from a time or country not his own.

All these restrictions may be summarised as fol-
lows ; before drawing any inference from a work
of literature as to the state of the society in which
the author lived, we should ask ourselves what
would be the worth of a similar inference as to con-
temporary manners drawn from a modern novel.

With the facts yielded by conceptions we may join
those indifferent facts of an obvious and elementary

193 N

Analytical Operations

character which the author has stated almost with-
out thinking. Logically we have no right to call
them certain, for we do sometimes meet with men
who make mistakes about obvious and elementary
facts, and others who lie even on indifferent matters.
But such cases are so rare that there is not much
danger in admitting as certain facts of this kind
which are supported by a single document, and this
is how we deal, in practice, with periods of which
little is known. The institutions of the Gauls and
Germans are described from the unique texts of
Cresar and Tacitus. Facts so easy to discover are
forced upon the authors of descriptions much as
realities are forced upon poets.

II. On the other hand, a statement in a document
as to an objective fact is never enough to establish
that fact. The chances of falsehood or error are
so many, the conditions which gave rise to the
statement are so little known, that we cannot be
sure that none of these chances has taken effect.
The critical examination provides no definitive solu-
tion ; it is indispensable if we are to avoid error,
but it is insufficient to conduct us to truth.

Criticism can prove no fact ; it only yields proba-
bilities. Its end and result is to decompose docu-
ments into statements, each labelled with an estimate
of its value — worthless statement, statement open
to suspicion (strong or weak), statement probably
(or, very probably) true, statement of unknown
value.

Of all these different kinds of results one only is
definitive — the statement of an author who can have had
no information on the fact he states is null and void ;
194

The Determination of Particular Facts

it is to be rejected as we reject an apocryphal docu-
ment.1 But criticism here merely destroys illusory
sources of information ; it supplies nothing certain to
take their place. The only sure results of criticism
are negative. All the positive results are subject to
doubt ; they reduce to propositions of the form :
" There are chances for or against the truth of such
and such a statement." Chances only. A statement
open to suspicion may turn out to be true , a state-
ment whose truth is probable may, after all, be false.
Instances occur continually, and we are never suffi-
ciently well acquainted with the conditions under
which the observation was made to know whether
it was made ill or well.

In order to obtain a definitive result we require a
final operation. After passing through the ordeal of
criticism, statements present themselves as probable
or improbable. But even the most probable of them,
taken by themselves, remain mere probabilities : to
pass from them to categorical propositions in scien-
tific form is a step we have no right to take; a
proposition in a science is an assertion not open
to debate, and that is what the statements we have
before us are not. It is a principle common to all
sciences of observation not to base a scientific con-
clusion on a single observation ; the fact must have
been corroborated by several independent observa-
tions before it is affirmed categorically. History,

1 Most historians refrain from rejecting a legend till its falsity
has been proved, and if by chance no document has been pre-
served to contradict it, they adopt it provisionally. This is how
the first five centuries of Rome are still dealt with. This method,
unfortunately still too general, helps to prevent history from being
established as a science.

l95

Analytical Operations

with its imperfect modes of acquiring information, has
less right than any other science to claim exemp-
tion from this principle. An historical statement
is, in the most favourable case, but an indifferently
made observation, and needs other observations to
corroborate it.

It is by combining observations that every science
is built up : a scientific fact is a centre on which
several different observations converge.1 Each obser-
vation is subject to chances of error which cannot
be entirely eliminated; but if several observations
agree, this can hardly be in virtue of a common error :
the more probable explanation of the agreement is
that the observers have all seen the same reality
and have all described it correctly. Errors are per-
sonal and tend to diverge ; it is the correct observa-
tions that agree.

Applied to history, this principle leads to a last
series of operations, intermediate between purely
analytical criticism and the synthetic operations —
the comparison of statements.

We begin by classifying the results yielded by
critical analysis in such a way as to bring together
those statements which relate to the same fact. The
operation is facilitated mechanically by the method
of slips. Either each statement has been entered
on a separate slip, or else a single slip has been
assigned for each fact, and the different statements
relating to it entered upon the slip as met with in

1 For the logical justification of this principle in history see C.
Seignobos, Revue Philosophique, July- August 1887. Complete scien-
tific certitude is only produced by an agreement between observa-
tions made on different methods; it is to be found at the junction
of two different paths of research.

I96

The Determination of Particular Facts

the course of reading. By bringing the statements
together we learn the extent of our information on
the fact; the definitive conclusion depends on the
relation between the statements. We have, then, to
study separately the different cases which may occur.
I. Most frequently, except in contemporary his-
tory, the documents only supply a single statement
on a given fact. In such a case all the other sciences
follow an invariable rule : an isolated observation is
not admitted into science ; it is quoted (with the
observer's name), but no conclusions are drawn from
it. Historians have no avowable motive for pro-
ceeding otherwise. When a fact is supported by no
more than the statement of a single man, however
honest he may be, historians ought not to assert it,
but to do as men of science do — give the reference
(Thucydides states, Caesar says that . . . ) ; this is
all they have a right to affirm. In reality they all
retain the habit of stating facts, as was done in the
middle ages, on the authority of Thucydides or of
Caesar ; many are simple enough to do so in express
terms. Thus, allowing themselves to be guided by
natural credulity, unchecked by science, historians
end by admitting, on the insufficient presumption
afforded by a unique document, any statement which
does not happen to be contradicted by another docu-
ment. Hence the absurd consequence that history
is more positive, and seems better established in
regard to those little known periods which are re-
presented by a single writer than in regard to facts
known from thousands of documents which con-
tradict each other. The wars of the Medes known
to Herodotus alone, the adventures of Fredegonda

197

Analytical Operations

related by none but Gregory of Tours, are less sub-
ject to discussion than the events of the French Re-
volution, which have been described by hundreds
of contemporaries. This is a discreditable state of
things which cannot be ended except by a revolution
in the minds of historians.

IV. When we have several statements relating to
the same fact, they may contradict each other or
they may agree. In order to be certain that they
really do contradict each other, we have to make
sure that they do actually relate to the same fact.
Two apparently contradictory statements may be
merely parallel ; they may not relate exactly to the
same moment, the same place, the same persons,
the same episodes of an event, and they may be
both correct.1 We must not, however, infer that
they confirm each other ; each comes under the
category of unique statements.

If the contradiction is real, at least one of the
statements is false. In such cases it is a natural
tendency to seek to reconcile them by a compro-
mise— to split the difference. This peace-making
spirit is the reverse of scientific. A says two and
two make four ; B says they make five. We are
not to conclude that two and two make four and
a half; we must examine and see which is right.
This examination is the work of criticism. Of two
contradictory statements, it nearly always happens
that one is open to suspicion ; this should be re-
jected if the competing statement has been judged
very probably true. If both are open to suspicion,

1 This case is studied and a good example given by Bernheim.
Lehrbuch, p. 421.

I98

The Determination of Particular Facts

we abstain from drawing any conclusion. We do
the same if several statements open to suspicion
agree together as against a single statement which
is not suspected.1

V. When several statements agree, it is still
necessary to resist the natural tendency to believe
that the fact has been demonstrated. The first
impulse is to count each document as one source of
information. We are well aware in matters of every-
day life that men are apt to copy each other, that
a single narrative often serves the turn of several nar-
rators, that several newspapers sometimes happen to
publish the same correspondence, that several re-
porters sometimes agree to let one of their number do
the work for all. We have, in such a case, several
documents, several statements — have we the same
number of observations ? Obviously not. When
one statement reproduces another, it does not con-
stitute a new observation, and even if an observation
were to be reproduced by a hundred different authors,
these hundred copies would amount to no more than
one observation. To count them as a hundred would
be the same thing as to count a hundred printed
copies of the same book as a hundred different
documents. But the respect paid to "historical
documents " is sometimes stronger than obvious
truth. The same statement occurring in several
different documents by different authors has an illu-

1 It is hardly necessary to enter a caution against the childish
method of counting the documents on each side of a question and
deciding by the majority. The statement of a single author who
was acquainted with a fact is evidently worth more than a hundred
statements made by persons who knew nothing about it. The rule
has been formulated long ago : Ne numcrcntur, scd pondercntur.

199

Analytical Operations

sory appearance of multiplicity; an identical fact
related in ten different documents at once gives
the impression of being established by ten agreeing
observations. This impression is to be distrusted.
An agreement is only conclusive when the agreeing
statements represent observations which are inde-
pendent of each other. Before we draw any con-
clusion from an agreement we must examine whether
it is an agreement between independent observations.
Two operations are thus required.

(i) We begin by inquiring whether the state-
ments are independent, or are reproductions of one
and the same observation. This inquiry is partly
the work of that part of external criticism which
deals with the investigation of sources;1 but that
investigation only touches the relations between
written documents, and stops short when it has
determined which passages of an author are bor-
rowed from other authors. Borrowed passages are
to be rejected without discussion. But the same
work remains to be done in reference to statements
which were not committed to writing. We have to
compare the statements which relate to the same
fact, in order to find out whether they proceeded
originally from different observers, or at least from
different observations.

The principle is analogous to that employed in
the investigation of sources. The details of a social
fact are so manifold, and there are so many different
ways of looking at the same fact, that two inde-
pendent observers cannot possibly give completely
coincident accounts ; if two statements present the

1 Cf. supra, p. 94.
200

The Determination of Particular Facts

same details in the same order, they must be derived
from a common observation; different observations
are bound to diverge somewhere. We may often
apply an a priori principle : if the fact was of such a
nature that it could only be observed or reported by
a single observer, then all the accounts of it must
be derived from a single observation. These prin-
ciples 1 enable us to recognise many cases of different
observations, and still more numerous cases of obser-
vations being reproduced.

There remains a great number of doubtful cases.
The natural tendency is to treat them as if they
were cases of independent observation. But the
scientific procedure would be the exact reverse of
this : as long as the statements are not proved to be
independent we have no right to assume that their
agreement is conclusive.

It is only after we have determined the relations
between the different statements that we can begin
to count them and examine into their agreement.
Here again we have to distrust the first impulse;
the kind of agreement which is really conclusive
is not, as one would naturally imagine, a perfect
similarity between two narratives, but an occasional
coincidence between two narratives which only par-
tially resemble each other. The natural tendency
is to think that the closer the agreement is, the
greater is its demonstrative power ; we ought, on
the contrary, to adopt as a rule the paradox that

1 It is hardly possible to study here the special difficulties which
arise in the application of these principles, as when the author,
wishing to conceal his indebtedness, has introduced deviations in
order to put his readers off the scent, or when the author has com-
bined statements taken from different documents.
20I

Analytical Operations

an agreement proves more when it is confined to a
small number of circumstances, It is at such points
of coincidence between diverging statements that
we are to look for scientifically established historical
facts.

(2) Before drawing any conclusions it remains to
make sure whether the different observations of the
same fact are entirely independent ; for it is possible
that one may have influenced another to such a
degree that their agreement is inconclusive. We
have to guard against the following cases :: —

(a) The different observations have been made by
the same author, who has recorded them either in
the same or in different documents ; special reasons
must then be had before it can be assumed that the
author really made the observation afresh, and did
not content himself with merely repeating a single
observation.

(b) There were several observers, but they com-
missioned one of their number to write a single
document. We have to ascertain whether the docu-
ment merely gives the statements of the writer, or
whether the other observers checked his work.

(c) Several observers recorded their observations
in different documents, but under similar conditions.
We must apply the list of critical questions in order
to ascertain whether they were not all subject to the
same influences, predisposing to falsehood or error;
whether, for example, they had a common interest,
a common vanity, or common prejudices.

The only observations which are certainly inde-
pendent are those which are contained in different
documents, written by different authors, who be-
202

The Determination of Particular Facts

longed to different groups, and worked under dif-
ferent conditions. Cases of perfectly conclusive
agreement are thus rare, except in reference to
modern periods.

The possibility of proving an historical fact de-
pends on the number of independent documents
relating to it which have been preserved, and the
preservation of the documents is a matter of chance ;
this explains the share which chance has in the
formation of historical science.

The facts which it is possible to establish are
chiefly those which cover a large extent of space or
time (sometimes called general facts), customs, doc-
trines, institutions, great events ; they were easier to
observe than the others, and are now easier to prove.
Historical method is not, however, essentially power-
less to establish facts of short duration and limited
extent (those which are called particular facts), such
as a saying, a momentary act. It is enough that
several persons should have been present when the
fact occurred, that they should have recorded it,
and that their writings should have come down to
us. We know what were the words which Luther
uttered at the Diet of Worms ; we know that he
did not say what tradition puts in his mouth. This
concurrence of favourable conditions becomes more
and more frequent with the organisation of news-
papers, of shorthand writers, and of depositories of
documents.

In the case of antiquity and the middle ages
historical knowledge is limited ,to general facts by
the scarcity of documents. In dealing with con-
temporary history it is possible to include more and

203

Analytical Operations

more particular facts. The general public supposes
the opposite of this ; it is suspicious about contem-
porary facts, with reference to which it sees contra-
dictory narratives circulating, and believes without
hesitation ancient facts, which it does not see con-
tradicted anywhere. Its confidence is at its greatest
in respect of that history which we have not the
means of knowing, and its scepticism increases with
the means of knowledge.

VI. Agreement between documents leads to conclu-
sions which are not all of them definitive. In order
to complete and rectify our conclusions we have
still to study the harmony of the facts.

Several facts which, taken in isolation, are only
imperfectly proved, may confirm each other in such
a manner as to produce a collective certainty. The
facts which the documents present in isolation have
sometimes been in reality sufficiently near each other
to be connected. Of this kind are the successive
actions of the same man or of the same group
of men, the habits of the same group at different
epochs separated by short intervals, or of similar
groups at the same epoch. It is no doubt possible
that one of several analogous facts may be true
and another false ; the certainty of the first does not
justify the categorical assertion of the second. . But
yet the harmony of several such facts, each proved
imperfectly, yields a kind of certainty ; the facts do
not, in the strict sense of the word, prove, but they
confirm 1 each other. The doubt which attached to
each one of them disappears ; we obtain that species

1 Here we merely indicate the principle of the method of con-
firmation ; its applications would require a very lengthy study.
204

The Determination of Particular Facts

of certainty which is produced by the interconnec-
tion of facts. Thus the comparison of conclusions
which are separately doubtful yields a whole which
is morally certain. In an itinerary of a sovereign,
the days and the places confirm each other when
they harmonise so as to form a coherent whole.
An institution or a popular usage is established by
the harmony of accounts, each of which is no more
than probable, relating to different times and places.

This method is a difficult one to apply. The
notion of harmony is a much vaguer one than that
of agreement. We cannot assign any precise general
rules for distinguishing facts which are sufficiently
connected to form . a whole, the harmony of whose
parts would be conclusive ; nor can we determine
beforehand the duration and extent of that which
may be taken to form a whole. Facts separated by
half a century of time and a hundred leagues of
space may confirm each other in such a way as to
establish a popular usage (for example, among the
ancient Germans) ; but they would prove nothing if
they were taken from a heterogeneous society subject
to rapid evolution (take, for example, French society
in 1750, and again in 1800, in Alsace and in
Provence). Here we have to study the relation
between the facts. This brings us to the beginnings
of historical construction ; here is the transition
from analytical to synthetic operations.

VII. But it remains to consider cases of discord-
ance between facts established by documents and
other facts established by other methods. It happens
sometimes that a fact obtained as an historical con-
clusion is in contradiction with a body of known

205

Analytical Operations

historical facts, or with the sum of our knowledge of
humanity founded on direct observation, or with a
scientific law established by the regular method of
an established science. In the first two cases the
fact is only in conflict with history, psychology, or
sociology, all imperfectly established sciences; we
then simply call the fact improbable. If it is in
conflict with a true science it becomes a miracle.
What are we to do with an improbable or miracu-
lous fact ? Are we to admit it after examination of
the documents, or are we to pass on and shelve the
question ?

Improbability is not a scientific notion ; it varies
with the individual. Each person finds improbable
what he is not accustomed to see : a peasant would
think the telephone much more improbable than a
ghost ; a king of Siam refused to believe in the
existence of ice. It is important to know who
precisely it is to whom the fact appears to be im-
probable. Is it to the mass who have no scientific
culture ? For these, science is more improbable
than miracle, physiology than spiritualism ; their
notions of improbability are worthless. Is it to
the man who possesses scientific culture ? If so, we
have to deal with that which seems improbable to
a scientific mind, and it would be more accurate to
say that the fact is contrary to the results of science
— that there is disagreement between the direct
observations of men of science and the indirect
testimony of the documents.

How is this conflict to be decided ? The question
has no great practical interest ; nearly all the docu-
ments which relate miraculous facts are already open
206

The Determination of Particular Facts

to suspicion on other grounds, and would be dis-
carded by a sound criticism. But the question of
miracles has raised such passions that it may be
well to indicate how it affects the historian.1

The general tendency to believe in the marvellous
has filled with miraculous facts the documents of
nearly every people. Historically the existence of
the devil is much better proved than that of Pisis-
tratus : there has not been preserved a single word of
a contemporary of Pisistratus saying that he has seen
him ; thousands of " ocular witnesses " declare they
have seen the devil ; few historical facts have been
established by so great a number of independent
testimonies. However, we do not hesitate to reject
the devil and to accept Pisistratus. For the existence
of the devil would be irreconcilable with the laws of
all the established sciences.

For the historian the solution of the problem is
obvious.2 The observations whose results are con-
tained in historical documents are never of equal
value with those of contemporary scientists ; we have
already shown why. The indirect method of history
is always inferior to the direct methods of the sciences
of observation. If its results do not harmonise with

1 Pere de Srnedt has devoted to this question a part of his
Principes de la critique histoire (Paris, 1887, i2mo).

2 The solution of the question is different in the case of the
sciences of direct observation, especially the biological sciences.
Science knows nothing of the possible and the impossible ; it only
recognises facts which have been correctly or incorrectly observed :
facts which had been declared impossible, as the existence of
aerolites, have been discovered to be genuine. The very notion of
a miracle is metaphysical ; it implies a conception of the universe
as a whole which transcends the limits of observation. (See Wallace,
"Miracles and Modern Spiritualism.")

207

Analytical Operations

theirs, it is history which must give way ; historical
science, with its imperfect means of information,
cannot claim to check, contradict, or correct the
results of other sciences, but must rather use their
results to correct its own. The progress of the
direct sciences sometimes modifies the results of
historical interpretation ; a fact established by direct
observation aids in the comprehension and criticism
of documents. Cases of stigmata and nervous anaes-
thesia which have been scientifically observed have
led to the admission as true of historical narratives
of analogous facts, as in the case of the stigmata of
certain saints and the possessed nuns of Loudun.
But history cannot aid the progress of the direct
sciences. It is kept at a distance from reality by
its indirect means of information, and must accept
the laws that are established by those sciences which
come into immediate contact with reality. In order
to reject one of these laws new direct observations
are necessary. Such revolutions are possible, but
they must be brought about from within. History
has no power to take the initiative in them.

The solution is not so clear in the case of facts
which do not harmonise with a body of historical
knowledge or with the sciences, still in the embryonic
stage, which deal with man. It depends on the
opinion we form as to the value of such knowledge.
We can at least lay down the practical rule that in
order to contradict history, psychology, or sociology,
we must have very strong documents, and this is a
case which hardly ever occurs.

208

BOOK III

SYNTHETIC OPERATIONS

209

BOOK III

SYNTHETIC OPERATIONS

CHAPTER I

GENERAL CONDITIONS OF HISTORICAL CONSTRUCTION

The criticism of documents only yields isolated facts.
In order to organise them into a body of science it is
necessary to perform a series of synthetic operations.
The study of these processes of historical construction
forms the second half of Methodology.

The mode of construction cannot be regulated by
the ideal plan of the science we desire to construct ;
it depends on the materials we have at our disposal.
It would be chimerical to formulate a scheme which
the materials would not allow us to carry out ; it
would be like proposing to construct an Eiffel tower
with building-stones. The fundamental defect of
philosophies of history is that they forget this prac-
tical necessity.

I. Let us begin by considering the materials of
history. What is their form and their nature? How
do they differ from the materials of other sciences?

Historical facts are derived from the critical ana-
lysis of documents. They issue from this process
in the form to which analysis has reduced them,

211

Synthetic Operations

chopped small into individual statements ; for a
single sentence contains several statements: we have
often accepted some and rejected others ; each of
these statements represents a fact.

Historical facts have the common characteristic of
having been taken from documents ; but they differ
greatly among themselves.

(i) They represent phenomena of very different
nature. From the same document we derive facts
bearing on handwriting, language, style, doctrines,
customs, events. The Mesha inscription furnishes
facts bearing on Moabite handwriting and language,
the belief in the god Chemosh, the practices belong-
ing to his cult, the war between the Moabites and
Israel. Thus the facts reach us pell-mell, without
distinction of nature. This mixture of heterogeneous
facts is one of the characteristics which differentiate
history from the other sciences. The sciences of
direct observation choose the facts to be studied,
and systematically limit themselves to the observa-
tion of facts of a single species. The documentary
sciences receive the facts, already observed, at the
hands of authors of documents, who supply them in
disorder. For the purpose of remedying this dis-
order it is necessary to sort the facts and group
them by species. But, for the purpose of sorting
them, it is necessary to know precisely what it is
that constitutes a species of historical facts ; in order
to group them we need a principle of classification
applicable to them. But on these two questions
of capital importance historians have not as yet
succeeded in formulating precise rules.

(2) Historical facts present themselves in very
212

Conditions of Historical Construction

different degrees of generality, from the highly
general facts which apply to a whole people and
which lasted for centuries (institutions, customs,
beliefs), down to the most transient actions of a
single man (a word, a movement). Here again
history differs from the sciences of direct observa-
tion, which regularly start from particular facts and
labour methodically to condense them into general
facts. In order to form groups the facts must be
reduced to a common degree of generality, which
makes it necessary to inquire to what degree of
generality we can and ought to reduce the different
species of facts. And this is what historians do not
agree about among themselves.

(3) Historical facts are localised; each belongs
to a given time and a given country. If we sup-
press the time and place to which they belong, they
lose their historical character; they now contribute
only to the knowledge of universal humanity, as is
the case with facts of folk-lore whose origin is un-
known. This necessity of localisation is also foreign
to the general sciences; it is confined to the descrip-
tive sciences, which deal with the geographical dis-
tribution and with the evolution of phenomena. It
obliges the historian to study separately the facts
belonging to different countries and different epochs.

(4) The facts which have been extracted from
documents by critical analysis present themselves
accompanied by a critical estimate of their proba-
bility.1 In every case where we have not reached
complete certainty, whenever the fact is merely
probable — still more when it is open to suspicion —

1 See above, p. 194.
213

Synthetic Operations

criticism supplies the fact to the historian accom-
panied by a label which he has no right to remove,
and which prevents the fact from being definitively-
admitted into the science. Even those facts which,
after comparison with others, end by being estab-
lished, are subject to temporary exclusion, like the
clinical cases which accumulate in the medical re-
views before they are considered sufficiently proved
to be received as scientific facts.

Historical construction has thus to be performed
with an incoherent mass of minute facts, with detail-
knowledge reduced as it were to a powder. It must
utilise a heterogeneous medley of materials, relating
to different subjects and places, differing in their
degree of generality and certainty. No method of
classifying them is provided by the practice of his-
torians ; history, which began by being a form of
literature, has remained the least methodical of the
sciences.

IT. In every science the next step after observing
the facts is to formulate a series of questions accord-
ing to some methodical system ; l every science is
composed of the answers to such a series of ques-
tions. In all the sciences of direct observation, even
if the questions to be answered have not been put
down in advance, the facts which are observed
suggest questions, and require them to be formulated
precisely. But historians have no discipline of this
kind ; many of them are accustomed to imitate
artists, and do not even think of asking themselves
what they are looking for. They take from their

1 In the experimental sciences an hypothesis is a form of question
accompanied by a provisional answer.

2I4

Conditions of Historical Construction

documents those parts which strike them, often for
purely personal reasons, and reproduce them, chang-
ing the language and adding any miscellaneous re-
flections which come into their minds.

If history is not to be lost in the confusion of its
materials, it must be made a rule to proceed here,
as in the other sciences, by way of question and
answer.1 But how are the questions to be chosen
in a science so different from the others ? This
is the fundamental problem of method. The only
way to solve it is to begin by determining the
essential characteristic of historical facts by which
they are differentiated from the facts of the other
sciences.

The sciences of direct observation deal with
realities, taken in their entirety. The science which
borders most closely on history in respect of its
subject-matter, descriptive zoology, proceeds by the
examination of a real and complete animal. This
animal is first observed, as a whole, by actual vision;
it is then dissected into its parts ; this dissection is
analysis in the original sense of the word (avaXvew,
to break up into parts). It is then possible to put
the parts together again in such a way as to exhibit
the structure of the whole ; this is real synthesis.
It is possible to watch the real movements which
are the functions of the organs in such a way as
to observe the mutual actions and reactions of the
different parts of the organism. It is possible to

1 Fustel de Coulanges saw the necessitv of this. In the preface
to his Rechcrches sur quelques problemes d'histoire (Paris, 1885, 8vo)
he announces his intention of presenting his researches "in the
form which all my works have, that is, in the form of questions
which I ask myself, and on which I endeavour to throw light."

215

Synthetic Operations

compare real wholes and see what are the parts
in which they resemble each other, so as to be
able to classify them according to real points of
resemblance. The science is a body of objective
knowledge founded on real analysis, synthesis, and
comparison; actual sight of the things studied
guides the scientific researcher and dictates the
questions he is to ask himself.

In history there is nothing like this. One is
apt to say that history is the " vision " of past
events, and that it proceeds by '" analysis " : these
are two metaphors, dangerous if we suffer ourselves
to be misled by them.1' In history we see nothing
real except paper with writing on it — and some-
times monuments or the products of art or industry.
The historian has nothing before him which he can
analyse physically, nothing which he can destroy
and reconstruct. "Historical analysis" is no more
real than is the vision of historical facts; it is
an abstract process, a purely intellectual operation.
The analysis of a document consists in a mental
search for the items of information it contains, with
the object of criticising them one by one. The
analysis of a fact consists in the process of dis-
tinguishing mentally between its different details (the
various episodes of an event, the characteristics of

1 Fustel de Coulanges himself seems to have been misled by
them : " History is a science ; it does not imagine, it only sees "
(Monarchic franque, p. i). "History, like every science, consists
in a process of discerning facts, analysing them, comparing them,
and noting their connections. . . . The historian . . . seeks facts
and attains them by the minute observation of texts, as the
chemist finds his in the course of experiments conducted with
minute precision" (Ibid., p. 39).

2l6

Conditions of Historical Construction

an institution), with the object of paying special
attention to each detail in turn; that is what is
called examining the different " aspects " of a fact, —
another metaphor. The human mind is vague by
nature, and spontaneously revives only vague collec-
tive impressions ; to impart clearness to these it is
necessary to ask what individual impressions go to
form a given collective impression, in order that
precision may be attained by a successive considera-
tion of them. This is an indispensable operation,
but we must not exaggerate its scope. It is not
an objective method which yields a knowledge of
real objects; it is only a subjective method which
aims at detecting those abstract elements which
compose our impressions.1 From the very nature
of its materials history is necessarily a subjective
science. It would be illegitimate to extend to this
intellectual analysis of subjective impressions the
rules which govern the real analysis of real objects.

History, then, must guard against the temptation
to imitate the method of the biological sciences.
Historical facts are so different from the facts of
the other sciences that their study requires a
different method.

III. Documents, the sole source of historical know-
ledge, give information on three categories of facts :

(i) Living beings and material objects. Docu-
ments make us acquainted with the existence of
human beings, physical conditions, products of art
and industry. In all -these cases physical facts

1 The subjective character of history has been brought out into
strong relief by the philosopher G. Simmel, Die Probleme der
Oeschichtsphilosophie (Leipzig, 1892, 8vo).

217

Synthetic Operations

have been brought before the author by physical
perception. But we have before us nothing but
intellectual phenomena, facts seen " through the
author's imagination," or, to speak accurately, mental
images representative of the author's impressions —
images which we form on the analogy of the images
which were in his mind. The Temple at Jerusalem
was a material object which men saw, but we cannot
see it now ; all we can now do is to form a mental
image of it, analogous to that which existed in the
minds of those who saw and described it.

(2) Actions of men. Documents relate the
actions (and words) of men of former times. Here,
too, are physical facts which were known to the
authors by sight and hearing, but which are now
for us no more than the author's recollections, sub-
jective images which are reproduced in our minds.
When Caesar was stabbed the dagger-thrusts were
seen, the words of the murderers were heard ;
we have nothing but mental images. Actions and
words all have this characteristic, that each was
the action or the word of an individual ; the
imagination can only represent to itself individual
acts, copied from those which are brought before
us by direct physical observation. As these are
the actions of men living in a society, most of
them are performed simultaneously by several in-
dividuals, or are directed to some common end.
These are collective acts ; but, in the imagination
as in direct observation, they always reduce to a
sum of individual actions. The "social fact," as
recognised by certain sociologists, is a philosophical
construction, not an historical fact.

218

Conditions of Historical Construction

(3) Motives and conceptions. Human actions
do not contain their own cause within themselves ;
they have motives. This vague word denotes both
the stimulus which occasions the performance of
an action, and the representation of the action which
is in the mind of a man at the moment when
he performs it. We can imagine motives only as
existing in a man's mind, and in the form of vague
interior representations, analogous to those which
we have of our own inward states ; we can express
them only by words, generally metaphorical. Here
we have psychic facts, generally called feelings and
ideas. Documents exhibit three kinds of such facts :
(a) motives and conceptions in the authors5 minds
and expressed by them ; (b) motives and ideas attri-
buted by the authors to contemporaries of theirs
whose actions they have seen ; (c) motives which we
ourselves may suppose to have influenced the actions
related in the documents, and which we represent
to ourselves on the model of our own motives. ,

Physical facts, human actions (both individual and
collective), psychic facts — these form the objects of
historical knowledge ; they are none of them observed
directly, they are all imagined. Historians — nearly
all of them unconsciously and under the impression
that they are observing realities — are occupied solely
with images.

IV. How, then, is it possible to imagine facts
without their being wholly imaginary ? The facts,
as they exist in the historian's mind, are necessarily
subjective ; that is one of the reasons given for re-
fusing to recognise history as a science. But sub-
jective is not a synonym of unreal. A recollection

219

Synthetic Opeeations

is only an image ; but it is not therefore a chimera,
it is the representation of a vanished reality. It
is true that the historian who works with docu-
ments has no personal recollections of which he can
make direct use; but he forms mental images on
the model of his own recollections. He assumes
that realities (objects, actions, motives), which have
now disappeared, but were formerly observed by the
authors of the documents, resembled the realities of
his own day which he has himself seen and which
he retains in his memory. This is the postulate of
all the documentary sciences. If former humanity
did not resemble the humanity of to-day, documents
would be unintelligible. Starting from this assumed
resemblance, the historian forms a mental repre-
sentation of the bygone facts of history similar to
his own recollection of the facts he has witnessed.

This operation, which is performed unconsciously,
is one of the principal sources of error in history.
The things of the past which are to be pictured in
imagination were not wholly similar to the things
of the present which we have seen ; we have never
seen a man like Caesar or Clovis, and we have never
experienced the same mental states as they. In
the established sciences it is equally true that one
man will work on facts which another has observed,
and which he must therefore represent to himself
by analogy; but these facts are defined by precise
terms which indicate what invariable elements ought
to appear, in the image. Even in physiology the
notions which occur are sufficiently clear and fixed
for the same word to evoke in the minds of all
naturalists similar images of an organ or a move-

220

Conditions of Historical Construction

ment. The reason is that each notion which has
a name has been formed by a method of observa-
tion and abstraction in the course of which all the
characteristics which belong to the notion have been
precisely determined and described.

But in proportion as a body of knowledge is
more nearly concerned with the invisible facts of
the mind, its notions become more confused and its
language less precise. Even the most ordinary facts
of human life, social conditions, actions, motives,
feelings, can only be expressed by vague terms (king,
warrior, to fight, to elect). In the case of more com-
plex phenomena, language is so indefinite that there
is no agreement even as to the essential elements of
the phenomena. What are we to understand by a
tribe, an army, an industry, a market, a revolution ?
Here history shares the vagueness common to all
the sciences of humanity, psychological or social.
But its indirect method of representation by mental
images renders this vagueness still more dangerous.
The historical images in our minds ought, then, to
reproduce at least the essential features of the
images which were in the minds of the direct
observers of past facts ; but the terms in which
they expressed their mental images never tell us
exactly what these essential elements were.

Facts which we did not see, described in language
which does not permit us to represent them in our
minds with exactness, form the data of history. The
historian, however, is obliged to picture the facts
in his imagination, and he should make it his con-
stant endeavour to construct his mental images out
of none but correct elements, so that he may imagine

221

Synthetic Operations

the facts as he would have seen them if he had
been able to observe them personally.1 But the
formation of a mental image requires more elements
than the documents supply, Let any one endeavour
to form a mental representation of a battle or a
ceremony out of the data of a narrative, however
detailed ; he will see how many features he is com-
pelled to add, This necessity becomes physically
perceptible in attempts to restore monuments in
accordance with descriptions (for example, the
Temple at Jerusalem), in pictures which claim to
be representations of historical scenes, in the draw-
ings of illustrated newspapers.

Every historical image contains a large part of
fancy. The historian cannot get rid of it, but he
can take stock of the real elements which enter
into his images and confine his constructions to
these ; they are the elements which he has derived
from the documents. If, in order to understand
the battle between Csesar and Ariovistus, he finds
it necessary to make a mental picture of the two
opposing armies, he will be careful to draw no
conclusions from the general aspect under which
he imagines them ; he will base his reasonings
exclusively on the real details furnished by the
documents.

V. The problem of historical method may be
finally stated as follows. Out of the different
elements we find in documents we form mental
images. Some of these, relating entirely to physical

1 This has been eloquently put by Carlyle and Michelet. It is
also the substance of the famous expression of Ranke : " I wish
to state how that really was " (wie es cigentlich gewesen).

222

Conditions of Histoeical Construction

objects, are furnished to us by illustrative monu-
ments, and they directly represent some of the
physical aspects of the things of the past. Most
of them, however, including all the images we form
of psychic facts, are constructed on the model either
of ancient representations, or, more frequently, of
the facts we have observed in our own experience.
Now, the things of the past were only partially
similar to the things of the present, and it is pre-
cisely the points of difference which make history
interesting. How are we to represent to ourselves
these elements of difference for which we have no
model ? We have never seen a company of men
resembling the Frankish warriors, and we have
never personally experienced the feelings which
Clovis had when settiDg out to fight against the
Visigoths. How are we to make our imagination
of facts of this kind harmonise with the reality ?

Practically, what happens is as follows. Imme-
diately on the reading of a sentence in a document
an image is formed in our minds by a spontaneous
operation beyond our control. This image is based
on a superficial analogy, and is, as a rule, grossly
inaccurate. Any one who searches his memory may
recall the absurd manner in which he first repre-
sented to himself the persons and scenes of the past.
It is the task of history to rectify these images
gradually, by eliminating the false elements one by
one, and replacing them by true ones. We have
seen red-haired people, bucklers, and Frankish battle-
axes (or at least drawings of these objects) ; we bring
these elements together, in order to correct our
first mental image of the Frankish warriors. The

223

Synthetic Operations

historical image thus ends by becoming a combination
of features borrowed from different experiences.

It is not enough to represent to oneself isolated
persons, objects, and actions. Men and their actions
form part of a whole, of a society and of a process of
evolution. It is, therefore, further necessary to re-
present to oneself the relations between different
men and different actions (nations, governments,
laws, wars).

But in order to imagine relations it is necessary
to have a conception of collectivities or wholes, and
the documents only give isolated elements. Here
again the historian is obliged to use a subjective
method. He imagines a society or a process of
evolution, and in this imaginary framework he dis-
poses the elements furnished by the documents.
Thus, whereas biological classification is guided by
the objective observation of physical units, historical
classification can only be effected upon subjective
units existing in the imagination.

The realities of the past are things which we do
not observe, and which we can only know in virtue
of their resemblance to the realities of the present.
In order to realise the conditions under which past
events happened, we must observe the humanity of
to-day, and look for the conditions under which
analogous events happen now. History thus be-
comes an application of the descriptive sciences
which deal with humanity, descriptive psychology,
sociology or social science ; but all these sciences are
still but imperfectly established, and their defects
retard the establishment of a science of history.

Some of the conditions of human life are, how-
224

Conditions of Historical Construction

ever, so necessary and so obvious that the most
superficial observation is enough to establish them.
These are the conditions common to all humanity;
they have their origin either in the physiological
organisation which determines the material needs of
men, or in the psychological organisation which de-
termines their habits in matters of conduct. These
conditions can therefore be provided for by the use
of a set of general questions applicable to all the
cases that may occur. It is with historical construc-
tion as with historical criticism — the impossibility of
direct observation compels the use of prearranged
sets of questions.

The human actions which form the subject-matter
of history differ from age to age and from country
to country, just as men and societies have differed
from each other ; and, indeed, it is the special aim
of history to study these differences. If men had
always had the same form of government or spoken
the same language, there would be no occasion to
write the history of forms of government or the
history of languages. But these differences are
comprised within limits imposed by the general
conditions of human life ; they are but varieties of
certain modes of being and doing which are com-
mon to the whole of humanity, or at least to the
great majority of men. We cannot know a priori
what was the mode of government or the language
of an historical people ; it is the business of history
to tell us. But that a given people had a language
and had a form of government is something which
we are entitled to assume, before examination, in
every possible case.

225 p

Synthetic Operations

By drawing up the list of the fundamental pheno-
mena which we may expect to find in the life of
every individual and every people, we shall have
suggested to us a set of general questions which
will be summary, but still sufficient to enable us
to arrange the bulk of historical facts in a certain
number of natural groups, each of which will form a
special branch of histoiy. This scheme of general
classification will supply the scaffolding of historical
construction.

The set of general questions will only apply to
phenomena of constant occurrence : it cannot anti-
cipate the thousands of local or accidental events
which enter into the life of an individual or a nation ;
it will, therefore, not contain all the questions which
the historian must answer before he can give a com-
plete picture of the past. The detailed study of the
facts will require the use of lists of questions entering
more into detail, and differing according to the nature
of the events, the men, or the societies studied. In
order to frame these lists, we begin by setting down
those questions or matters of detail which are sug-
gested by the mere reading of the documents; but
for the purpose of arranging these questions, often
indeed for the purpose of making the list complete,
recourse must be had to the systematic a priori
method. Among the classes of facts, the persons,
and the societies with which we are well acquainted
(either from direct observation or from history), we
look for those which resemble the facts, the persons,
or the societies which we wish to study. By analysing
the scheme of arrangement used in the scientific
treatment of these familiar cases we shall learn what

226

Conditions of Historical Construction

questions ought to be asked in reference to the
analogous cases which we propose to investigate. Of
course the model must be chosen intelligently; we
must not apply to a barbarous society a list of ques-
tions framed on the study of a civilised nation, and
ask with regard to a feudal domain what agents
corresponded to each of our ministers of state — as
Boutaric did in his study of the administration of
Alphonse of Poitiers.

This method of drawing up lists of questions
which bases all historical construction on an a priori
procedure, would be objectionable if history really
were a science of observation ; and perhaps some
will think it compares very unfavourably with the
a posteriori methods of the natural sciences. But its
justification is simple : it is the only method which
it is possible to employ, and the only method which,
as a matter of fact, ever has been employed. The
moment an historian attempts to put in order the
facts contained in documents, he constructs out of
the knowledge he has (or thinks he has) of human
affairs a scheme of arrangement which is the equi-
valent of a list of questions — unless, perhaps, he
adopts a scheme which one of his predecessors has
constructed in a similar manner. But when this
Avork has been performed unconsciously, the scheme
of arrangement remains incomplete and confused.
Thus it is not a case of deciding whether to work
with or without an a priori set of questions — we
must work with such a set in any case — the choice
merely lies between the unconscious use of an in-
complete and confused set of questions and the *
conscious use of a precise and complete set.

227

Synthetic Operations

VI. We can now sketch the plan of historical con-
struction in a way which will determine the series of
synthetic operations necessary to raise the edifice.

The critical analysis of the documents has sup-
plied the materials — historical facts still in a state
of dispersion. We begin by imagining these facts
on the model of what we suppose to be the analo-
gous facts of the present ; by combining elements
taken from reality at different points, we endea-
vour to form a mental image which shall resemble
as nearly as possible that which would have been
produced by direct observation of the past event.
This is the first operation, inseparable in practice
from the reading of the documents. Considering
that it will be enough to have indicated its nature
here,1 we have refrained from devoting a special
chapter to it.

The facts having been thus imagined, we group
them according to schemes of classification devised
on the model of a body of facts which we have
observed directly, and which we suppose analogous
to the body of past facts under consideration. This
is the second operation; it is performed by the aid
of systematic questions, and its result is to divide the
mass of historical facts into homogeneous portions
which we afterwards form into groups until the entire
history of the past has been systematically arranged
according to a general scheme.

When we have arranged in this scheme the facts
taken from the documents, there remain gaps whose
extent is always considerable, and is enormous for
those parts of history in regard to which documents

1 Cf. pp. 219-23.

228

Conditions of Historical Construction

are scanty. We endeavour to fill some of these gaps
by reasoning based on the facts which are known. This
is (or should be) the third operation ; it increases the
sum of historical knowledge by an application of logic.

We still possess nothing but a mass of facts placed
side by side in a scheme of classification. We have
to condense them into formula?, in order to deduce
their general characteristics and their relation to
each other. This is the fourth operation; it leads
to the final conclusions of history, and crowns the
work of historical construction from the scientific
point of view.

But as historical knowledge, which is by nature
complex and unwieldy, is exceptionally difficult to
communicate, we still have to look for the methods
of expounding historical results in appropriate form.

VII. This series of operations, easy to conceive
in the mind, has never been more than imperfectly
performed. It is beset by material difficulties which
theories of methodology do not take into account,
but which it would be better to face, with the
purpose of discovering whether they are after all
insurmountable.

The operations of history are so numerous, from
the first discovery of the document to the final for-
mula of the conclusion, they require such minute
precautions, so great a variety of natural gifts and
acquired habits, that there is no man who can
perform by himself all the work on any one point.
History is less able than any other science to dispense
with the division of labour ; but there is no other
science in which labour is so imperfectly divided.
We find specialists in critical scholarship writing

229

Synthetic Operations

general histories in which they let their imagination
guide them in the work of construction ; 1 and, on the
other hand, there are constructive historians who use
for their work materials whose value they have not
tested.2 The reason is that the division of labour
implies a common understanding among the workers,
and in history no such understanding exists. Except
in the preparatory operations of external criticism,
each worker follows the guidance of his own private
inspiration ; he is at no pains to work on the same
lines as the others, nor does he pay any regard to
the whole of which his own work is to form a part.
Thus no historian can feel perfectly safe in adopting
the results of another's work, as may be done in the
established sciences, for he does not know whether
these results have been obtained by trustworthy
methods. The most scrupulous go so far as to admit
nothing until they have done the work on the docu-
ments over again for themselves. This was the
attitude adopted by Fustel de Coulanges. It is
barely possible to satisfy this exacting standard in
the case of little-known periods, the documents re-
lating to which are confined to a few volumes ; and
yet some have gone so far as to maintain the dogma
that no historian should ever work at second hand.3
This, indeed, is what an historian is compelled to
do when the documents are too numerous for him

1 Curtius in his "History of Greece," Mommsen in his "History
of Rome " (before the Empire), Lamprecht in his "History of
Germany."

2 It will be enough to mention Augustin Thierry, Michelet, and
Carlyle.

3 See P. Guiraud, Fustel dc Coulanges (Paris, 1896, i2mo), p. 164,
for some very judicious observations on this subject.

23O

Conditions of Historical Construction

to be able to read them all ; but he does not say so,
to avoid scandal.

It would be better to acknowledge the truth
frankly. So complex a science as history, where
facts must ordinarily be accumulated by the million
before it is possible to formulate conclusions, cannot
be built up on this principle of continually beginning
afresh. Historical construction is not work that
can be done with documents, any more than history
can be " written from manuscripts," and for the same
reason — the shortness of time. In order that science
may advance it is necessary to combine the results
of thousands of detail-researches.

But how are we to proceed in view of the fact
that most researches have been conducted upon
methods which, if not defective, are at least open to
suspicion ? Universal confidence would lead to error
as surely as universal distrust would make progress
impossible. One useful rule, at any rate,may be
stated, as follows : The works of historians should be
read with the same critical precautions which are
observed in the reading of documents. A natural
instinct impels us to look principally for the con-
clusions, and to accept them as so much established
truth ; we ought, on the contrary, to be continually
applying analysis, we ought to look for the facts, the
proofs, the fragments of documents — in short, the
materials. We shall be doing the author's work
over again, but we shall do it very much faster than
he did, for that which takes up time is the collec-
tion and combination of the materials ; and we shall
accept no conclusions but those we consider to have
been proved.

231

CHAPTER II

THE GROUPING OF FACTS

I. The prime necessity for the historian, when con-
fronted with the chaos of historical facts, is to limit
the field of his researches. In the ocean of universal
history what facts is he to choose for collection ?
Secondly, in the mass of facts so chosen he will
have to distinguish between different groups and
make subdivisions. Lastly, within each of these
subdivisions he will have to arrange the facts one
by one. Thus all historical construction should
begin with the search for a principle to guide in the
selection, the grouping, and the arrangement of facts.
This principle may be sought either in the external
conditions of the facts or in their intrinsic nature.

The simplest and easiest mode of classification
is that which is founded on external conditions.
Every historical fact belongs to a definite time and
a definite place, and relates to a definite man or
group of men : a convenient basis is thus afforded
for the division and arrangement of facts. We
have the history of a period, of a country, of a
nation, of a man (biography) ; the ancient historians
and those of the Renaissance used no other type.
Within this general scheme the subdivisions are
formed on the same principle, and facts are arranged
in chronological and geographical order, or accord-

232

The Grouping of Facts

ing to the groups to which they relate. As to the
selection of facts to be arranged in this scheme, for
a long time it was made on no fixed principle ; his-
torians followed their individual fancy, and chose
from among the facts relating to a given period,
country, or nation all that they deemed interesting
or curious. Livy and Tacitus mingle accounts of
floods, epidemics, and the birth of monsters with
their narratives of wars and revolutions.

Classification of facts by their intrinsic nature
was introduced very late, and has made way but
slowly and imperfectly. It took its rise outside
the domain of history, in certain branches of study
dealing with special human phenomena— language,
literature, art, law, political economy, religion ; studies
which began by being dogmatic, but gradually as-
sumed an historical character. The principle of this
mode of classification is to select and group together
those facts which relate to the same species of
actions ; each of these groups becomes the subject-
matter of a special branch of history. The totality
of facts thus comes to be arranged in compartments
which may be constructed a 'priori by the study of
the totality of human activities ; these correspond
to the set of general questions of which we have
spoken in the preceding chapter.

In the following table we have attempted to
provide a general scheme for the classification1 of

1 The classification of M. Lacombe (Be I'histoire considere'e comme
science, chap, vi.), founded on the motives of actions and the wants
they are intended to satisfy, is very judicious from the philoso-
phical point of view, but does not meet the practical needs of
historians ; it rests on abstract psychological categories (economic,
reproductive, sympathetic, ambitious, &c), and ends by classing

233

Synthetic Operations

historical facts, founded on the nature of the condi-
tions and of the manifestations of activity.

I. Material Conditions, (i) Study of the body: A.
Anthropology (ethnology), anatomy, and physiology, ano-
malies and pathological peculiarities. B. Demography
(number, sex, age, births, deaths, diseases). (2) Study of
the environment: A. Natural geographical environment
(orographic configuration, climate, water, soil, flora, and
fauna). B. Artificial environment, forestry (cultivation,
buildings, roads, implements, &c).

II. Intellectual Habits (not obligatory). (1) Language
(vocabulary, syntax, phonetics, semasiology). Handwriting.
(2) Arts: A. Plastic arts (conditions of production, con-
ceptions, methods, works). B. Arts of expression, music,
dance, literature. (3) Sciences (conditions of production,
methods, results). (4) Philosophy and Morals (conceptions,
precepts, actual practice). (5) Religion (beliefs, practices).1

III. Material Customs (not obligatory). (1) Material
life : A. Food (materials, modes of preparing, stimulants).
B. Clothes and personal adornment. C. Dwellings and
furniture. (2) Private life: A.< Employment of time
(toilette, care of the person, meals). B. Social ceremonies
(funerals and marriages, festivals, etiquette). 0. Amuse-
ments (modes of exercise and hunting, games and spectacles,
social meetings, travelling).

IV. Economic Customs, (i) Production : A. Agriculture
and stock-breeding. B. Exploitation of minerals. (2) Trans-
formation, Transport awl industries : 2 technical processes,
division of labour, means of communication. (3) Commerce:

together very different species of phenomena (military institutions
along with economics).

1 Ecclesiastical institutions form part of the government ; in
German manuals of antiquities they are found among institutions,
while religion is classed with the arts.

2 Modes of transport, which are often put under commerce, form
a species of industry.

234

The Grouping of Facts

exchange and sale, credit. (4) Distribution : system of
property, transmission, contracts, profit-sharing.

V. Social Institutions, (i) The family : A. Constitution,
authority, condition of women and children. B. Economic
organisation.! Family property, succession. (2) Education
and instruction (aim, methods, personnel). (3) Social classes
(principle of division, rules regulating intercourse).,

VI. Public Institutions (obligatory). (1) Political
institutions : A. Sovereign (personnel, procedure). B. Admin-
istration, services (war, justice, finance, &c). G. Elected
authorities, assemblies, electoral bodies (powers, procedure).
(2) Ecclesiastical institutions (the same divisions). (3)
International institutions: A. Diplomacy. B. War (usages
of war and military arts). C. Private law and commerce.

This grouping of facts according to their nature is
combined with the system of grouping by time and
place ; we thus obtain chronological, geographical, or
national sections in each branch. The history of a
species of activity (language, painting, government)
subdivides into the history of periods, countries, and
nations (history of the ancient Greek language, his-
tory of the government of France in the nineteenth
century).

The same principles aid in determining the order
in which the facts are to be arranged. The neces-
sity of presenting facts one after another obliges us
to adopt some methodical rule of succession. We
may describe successively either all the facts which
relate to a given place, or those which relate to a
given country, or all the facts of a given species.
All historical matter can be distributed in three
different kinds of order : chronological order, geogra-

1 Property is an institution of mixed character, being at once
economic, social, and political.

23S

Synthetic Operations

pliical order, that kind of order which is governed
by the nature of actions and is generally called
logical order. It is impossible to use any of these
orders exclusively : in every chronological exposition
there necessarily occur geographical or logical cross-
divisions, transitions from one country to another, or
from one species of facts to a different species, and
conversely. But it is always necessary to decide
which shall be the main order into which the others
enter as subdivisions.

It is a delicate matter to choose between these
three orders ; our choice will be decided by different
reasons according to the subject, and according to
the public for whom we are working. That is to
say, it will depend on the method of exposition ; it
would take up too much space to give the theory of it.

II. When we come to the selection of historical
facts for classification and arrangement, a question
is raised which has been disputed with considerable
warmth.

Every human action is by its nature an individual
transient phenomenon which is confined to a definite
time and a definite place. Strictly speaking, every
fact is unique. But every action of a man resembles
other actions of the same man, or of other mem1 3rs
of the same group, and often to so great a degree
that the whole group of actions receives a common
name, in which their individuality is lost. These
groups of similar actions, which the human mind is
irresistibly impelled to form, are called habits, usages,
institutions. These are merely constructions of the
mind, but they are imposed so forcibly on our in-
tellect that many of them must be recognised and

236

The Grouping of Facts

constantly employed ; habits are collective facts,
possessing extension in time and space. Historical
facts may therefore be considered under two different
aspects: we may regard either the individual, par-
ticular, and transient elements in them, or we may
look for what is collective, general, and durable.
According to the first conception, history is a con-
tinuous narrative of the incidents which have hap-
pened among men in the past ; according to the
second, it is the picture of the successive habits of
humanity.

On this subject there has been a contest, especially
in Germany, between the partisans of the history of
civilisation (Kulturgeschichte)1 and the historians who
remain faithful to ancient tradition; in France we
have had the struggle between the history of insti-
tutions, manners, and ideas, and political history,
contemptuously nicknamed " battle-history " by its
opponents.

This opposition is explained by the difference
between the documents which the workers on either
side were accustomed to deal with. The historians,
principally occupied with political history, read of
individual and transient acts of rulers in which it
was difficult to detect any common feature. In
the special histories, on the contrary (except that of
literature), the documents exhibit none but general
facts, a linguistic form, a religious rite, a rule of law;
an effort of imagination is required to picture the
man who pronounced the word, who performed the
rite, or who applied the rule in practice.

1 For the history and biography of this movement see Bernheim,
Lehrbuch, pp. 45-55.

237

Synthetic Operations

There is no need to take sides in this controversy.
Historical construction in its completeness implies
the study of facts under both aspects. The repre-
sentation of men's habits of thought, life, i*nd action
is obviously an important part of history. And yet,
supposing we had brought together all the acts of
all individuals for the purpose of extracting what
is common to them, there would still remain a
residue which we should have no right to reject, for
it is the distinctively historical element — the cir-
cumstance that a particular action was the action of
a given man, or group of men, at a given moment.
In a scheme of classification which should only
recognise the general facts of political life there
would be no place for the victory of Pharsalia or
the taking of the Bastille — accidental and transient
facts, but without which the history of Roman and
French institutions would be unintelligible.

History is thus obliged to combine with the study
of general facts the study of certain particular facts.
It has a mixed character, fluctuating between a
science of generalities and a narrative of adventures.
The difficulty of classing this hybrid under one of
the categories of human thought has often been
expressed by the childish question : Is history a
science or an art ?

III. The general table given above may be used
for the determination of all the species of habits
(usages or institutions) of which the history may be
written. But before applying this general scheme
to the study of any particular group of habits, lan-
guage, religion, private usages, or political institu-
tions, there is always a preliminary question to be

238

The Grouping of Facts

answered : Whose were the habits we are about to
study ? They Avere common to a great number of
individuals ; and a collection of individuals with the
same habits is what we call a group. The first con-
dition, then, for the study of a habit is the deter-
mination of the group which has practised it. At
this point we must beware of the first impulse ; it
leads to a negligence which may ruin the whole of
our historical construction.

The natural tendency is to conceive the human
group on the model of the zoological species — as a
body of men who all resemble each other. We take
a group united by a very obvious common char-
acteristic, a nation united by a common official
government (Romans, English, French), a people
speaking the same language (Greeks, ancient Ger-
mans), and we proceed as if all the members of this
group resembled each other at every point and had
the same usages.

As a matter of fact, no real group, not even a
centralised society, is a homogeneous whole. For a
great part of human activity — language, art, science,
religion, economic interests — the group is constantly
fluctuating. What are we to understand by the
group of those who speak Greek, the Christian
group, the group of modern science ? And even
those groups to which some precision is given by
an official organisation, States and Churches, are
but superficial unities composed of heterogeneous
elements. The English nation comprises Welsh,
Scotch, and Irish ; the Catholic dhurch is composed
of adherents scattered over the whole world, and
differing in everything but religion. There is no

239

Synthetic Operations

group whose members have the same habits in
every respect. The same man is at the same time
a member of several groups, and in each group he
has companions who differ from those he has in the
others. A French Canadian belongs to the British
Empire, the Catholic Church, the group of French-
speaking people. Thus the different groups overlap
each other in a way that makes it impossible to
divide humanity into sharply distinct societies exist-
ing side by side.

In historical documents we find the contemporary
names of groups, many of them resting on mere
superficial resemblances. It must be made a rule
not to adopt popular notions of this kind without
criticising them. We must accurately determine
the nature and extent of the group, asking : Of what
men was it composed ? What bond united them ?
What habits had they in common ? In what
species of activity did they differ ? Not till after
such criticism shall we be able to tell what are the
habits in respect of which the group in question
may be used as a basis of study. In order to study
intellectual habits (language, religion, art, science)
we shall not take a political unit, the nation, but
the group consisting of those who shared the habit
in question. In order to study economic facts we
shall choose a group united by a common economic
interest ; we shall reserve the political group for
the study of social and political facts, and we shall
discard race 1 altogether.

1 It is no longer necessary to demonstrate the nullity of the
notion of race. It used to be applied to vague groups, formed by
a nation or a language ; for race as understood by historians (Greek,

24O

The Grouping of Facts

Even in those points in which a group is homo-
geneous it is not entirely so ; it is divided into sub-
groups, the members of which differ in secondary
habits ; a language is divided into dialects, a re-
ligion into sects, a nation into provinces. Con-
versely, one group resembles other groups in a way
that justifies its being regarded as contiguous with
them ; in a general classification we may recognise
" families " of languages, arts, and peoples. We
have, then, to ask : How was a given group sub-
divided ? Of what larger group did it form a
part?

It then becomes possible to study methodically
a given habit, or even the totality of the habits
belonging to a given time and place, by following
the table given above. The operation presents no
difficulties of method in the case of those species
of facts which appear as individual and voluntary
habits — language, art, sciences, conceptions, private
usages ; here it is enough to ascertain in what each
habit consisted. It is merely necessary to distin-
guish carefully between those who originated or
maintained habits (artists, the learned, philosophers,
introducers of fashions) and the mass who accepted
them.

But when we come to social or political habits
(what we call institutions), we meet with new
conditions which produce an inevitable illusion.

Roman, Germanic, Celtic, Slavonic races) has nothing but the
name in common with race in the anthropological sense — that is,
a group of men possessing the same hereditary characteristics. It
has been reduced to an absurdity by the abuse Taine made of it. A
very good criticism of it will be found in Lacombe (ibid., chap, xviii.),
and in Robertson ("The Saxon and the Celt," London, 1897, 8vo),

24I Q

Synthetic Operations

The members of the same social or political group
do not merely habitually perform similar actions ;
they influence each other by reciprocal actions, they
command, coerce, pay each other. Habits here take
the form of relations between the different members ;
when they are of old standing, formulated in official
rules, imposed by a visible authority, maintained
by a special set of persons, they occupy so impor-
tant a place in life, that, to the persons under their
influence, they appear as external realities. The
men, too, who specialise in an occupation or a
function which becomes the dominating habit of
their lives, appear as grouped in distinct categories
(classes, corporations, churches, governments); and
these categories are taken for real existences, or
at least for organs of various functions in a real
existence, namely, society. We follow the analogy
of an animal's body so far as to describe the
" structure " and the " functions " of a society, even
its " anatomy " and " physiology." These are pure
metaphors. By the structure of a society we mean
the rules and the customs by which occupations
and enjoyments are distributed among its members;
by its functions we mean the habitual actions by
which each man enters into relations with the
others. It may be convenient to use these terms,
but it should be remembered that the underlying
reality is composed entirely of habits and customs.

The study of institutions, however, obliges us
to ask special questions about persons and their
functions. In respect of social and economic in-
stitutions we have to ask what was the principle
of the division of labour and of the division into

242

The Grouping of Facts

classes, what were the professions and classes, how
were they recruited, what were the relations between
the members of the different professions and classes.
In respect of political institutions, which are sanc-
tioned by obligatory rules and a visible authority,
two new series of questions arise. ( I ) Who were the
persons invested with authority ? When authority
is divided we have to study the division of func-
tions, to analyse the personnel of government into its
different groups (supreme and subordinate, central
and local), and to distinguish each of the special
bodies. In respect of each class of men concerned
in the government we shall ask : How were they
recruited ? What was their official authority ? What
were their real powers ? (2) What were the official
rules ? What was their form (custom, orders, law,
precedent) ? What was their content (rules of law) ?
What was the mode of application (procedure) ?
And, above all, how did the rules differ from the
practice (abuse of power, exploitation, conflicts be-
tween executive agents, non-observance of rules) ?

After the determination of all the facts which
constitute a society, it remains to find the place
Avhich this society occupies among the total number
of the societies contemporary with it. Here we
enter upon the study of international institutions,
intellectual, economic, and political (diplomacy and
the usages of war) ; the same questions apply as
in the study of political institutions. A study
should also be made of the habits common to
several societies, and of those relations which do
not assume an official form. This is one of the
least advanced parts of historical construction

243

Synthetic Operations

IV. The outcome of all this labour is a tabulated
view of human life at a given moment ; it gives us
the knowledge of a state of society (in German,
Zustand). But history is not limited to the study
of simultaneous facts, taken in a state of rest, to
what we may call the statics of society. It also
studies the states of society at different moments,
and discovers the differences between these states.
The habits of men and the material conditions
under which they live change from epoch to epoch ;
even when they appear to be constant they do not
remain unaltered in every respect. There is there-
fore occasion to investigate these changes ; thus
arises the study of successive facts.

Of these changes the most interesting for the
work of historical construction are those which tend
in a common direction,1 so that in virtue of a series of
gradual differentiations a usage or a state of society is
transformed into a different usage or state, or, to speak
without metaphor, cases where the men of a given
period practise a habit very different from that of
their predecessors without any abrupt change having
taken place. This is evolution.

Evolution occurs in all human habits. In order
to investigate it, therefore, it is enough to turn once
more to the series of questions which we used in
constructing a tabulated view of society. In respect
of each of the facts, conditions, usages, persons in-
vested with authority, official rules, the question is to
be asked : What was the evolution of this fact ?

1 There is no general agreement on the proper place in history of
retrograde changes, of those oscillations which bring things back
to the point from which they started.

244

The Grouping of Facts

This study will involve several operations : ( i )
the determination of the fact whose evolution is to
be studied ; (2) the fixing of the duration of the
time during which the evolution took place (the
period should be so chosen that while the transfor-
mation is obvious, there yet remains a connecting
link between the initial and the final condition); (3)
the establishing of the different stages of the evolu-
tion ; (4) the investigation of the means by which it
was brought about.

V. A series, even a complete series, of all the states
of all societies and of all their evolutions would not
be enough to exhaust the subject-matter of history.
There remains a number of unique facts which we
cannot pass over, because they explain the origin
of certain states of society, and form the starting-
points of evolutions. How could we study the in-
stitutions or the evolution of France if we ignored
the conquest of Gaul by Caesar and the invasion of
the Barbarians ?

This necessity of studying unique facts has caused
it to be said that history cannot be a science, for
every science has for its object that which is general.
History is here in the same situation as cosmography,
geology, the science of animal species : it is not the
abstract knowledge of the general relations between
facts, it is a study which aims at explaining reality.
Now, reality exists but once. There has been but
a single evolution of the world, of animal life, of
humanity. In each of these evolutions the succes-
sive facts have not been the product of abstract laws,
but of the concurrence, at each moment, of several
circumstances of different nature. This concurrence,

245

Synthetic Operations

sometimes called chance, has produced a series of
accidents which have determined the particular
course taken by evolution.1 Evolution can only
be understood by the study of these accidents ;
history is here on the same footing as geology or
paleontology.

Thus scientific history may go back to the acci-
dents, or events, which traditional history collected
for literary reasons, because they struck the imagina-
tion, and employ them for the study of evolution.
We may thus look for the facts which have influenced
the evolution of each one of the habits of humanity.
Each event will be arranged under its date in the
evolution which it is supposed to have influenced.
It will then suffice to bring together the events of
every kind, and to arrange them in chronological
and geographical order, to have a representation of
historical evolution as a whole.

Then, over and above the special histories in
which the facts are arranged under purely abstract
categories (art, religion, private life, political insti-
tutions), we shall have constructed a concrete general
history, which will connect together the various
special histories by exhibiting the main stream
of evolution which has dominated all the special
evolutions. None of the species of facts which
we study apart (religion, art, law, constitutions)
forms a closed world within which evolution takes
place in obedience to a kind of internal impulse, as
specialists are prone to imagine. The evolution of

1 The theory of chance as affecting history has been expounded in
a masterly manner by M. Cournot, Considerations sur la marche cles
idies et des dv&nements dans les temps modernes (Paris, 1872, 2 vols. 8vo).

246

The Grouping of Facts

a usage or of an institution (language, religion,
church, state) is only a metaphor; a usage is an
abstraction, abstractions do not evolve; it is only
existences that evolve, in the strict sense of the
word.1 When a change takes place in a usage,
this means that the men who practise it have
changed. Now, men are not built in water-tight
compartments (religious, juridical, economic) within
which phenomena can occur in isolation; an event
which modifies the condition of a man changes his
habits in a great variety of respects. The invasion
of the Barbarians influenced alike language, private
life, and political institutions. We cannot, there-
fore, understand evolution by confining ourselves to
a special branch of history ; the specialist, even for
the purpose of writing the complete history of his
own branch, must look beyond the confines of his
own subject into the field of general events. It is
the merit of Taine to have asserted, with reference
to English literature, that literary evolution depends,
not on literary events, but on facts of a general
character.

The general history of individual facts was de-
veloped before the special histories. It contains
the residue of facts which have .not found a place
in the special histories, and has been reduced in
extent by the formation and detachment of special
branches. As general facts are principally of a

1 Lamprecht, in a long article, Was ist Kulturgeschichte, published
in the Deutsche Zeitschrift fiir Geschichtswissenschafi, New Series,
vol. i., 1896, has attempted to base the history of civilisation on
the theory of a collective soul of society producing " social-psychic"
phenomena common to the whole society, and differing from period
to period. This is a metaphysical hypothesis.

247

Synthetic Operations

political nature, and as it is more difficult to orga-
nise these into a special branch, general history has
in practice been confounded with political history
(Staatengeschichte)} Thus political historians have
been led to make themselves the champions of
general history, and to retain in their constructions
all the general facts (migrations of peoples, religious
reforms, inventions, and discoveries) necessary for
the understanding of political evolution.

In order to construct general history it is neces-
sary to look for all the facts which, because they
have produced changes, can explain either the
state of a society or one of its evolutions. We
must search for them among all classes of facts,
displacements of population, artistic, scientific, re-
ligious, technical innovations, changes in the per-
sonnel of government, revolutions, wars, discoveries
of countries.

That which is important is that the fact should
have had a decisive influence. We must therefore
resist the natural temptation to divide facts into
great and small. It goes against the grain to admit
that great effects may have had small causes, that
Cleopatra's nose may have made a difference to the
Roman Empire. .This repugnance is of a metaphy-
sical order; it springs from a preconceived opinion
on the government of the world. In all the sciences
which deal with an evolution we find individual facts
which serve as starting-points for series of vast trans-
formations. A drove of horses brought by the Spanish

1 The expression national history, introduced in the interests
of patriotism, denotes the same thing. The history of the nation
means practically the history of the State.

248

The Grouping of Facts

has stocked the whole of South America. In a flood
a branch of a tree may dam a current and transform
the aspect of a valley.

In human evolution we meet with great transfor-
mations which have no intelligible cause beyond an
individual accident.1 In the sixteenth century Eng-
land changed its religion three times on the death
of a sovereign (Henry VIIL, Edward VI., Mary).
Importance is not to be measured by the initial fact,
but by the facts which resulted from it. We must
not, therefore, deny a priori the action of individuals
and discard individual facts. We must examine
whether a given individual was in a position to
make his influence strongly felt. There are two
cases in which we may assume that he was : ( i )
when his action served as an example to a mass
of men and created a tradition, a case frequent
in art, science, religion, and technical matters; (2)
when he had power to issue commands and direct
the actions of a mass of men, as is the case with
the heads of a state, an army, or a church.. The
episodes in a man's life may thus become important
facts.

Accordingly, in the scheme of historical classifi-
cation a place should be assigned for persons and
events.

VI. In every study of successive facts it is
necessary to provide a number of halting-places,
to distinguish beginnings and ends, in order that
chronological divisions may be made in the enor-
mous mass of facts. These divisions are periods;
the use of them is as old as history. We need

1 See Cournot, ibid., i. p. iv.
249

Synthetic Operations

them, not only in general history, but in the special
branches of history as well, whenever we study an
extent of time long enough for an evolution to be
sensible. It is by means of events that we fix
their limits.

In the special branches of history, after having
decided what changes of habits are to be considered
as reaching deepest, we adopt them as marking dates
in the evolution ; we then inquire what event pro-
duced them. The event which led to the formation
or the change of a habit becomes the beginning or
the end of a period. Sometimes these boundary
events are of the same species as the facts whose
evolution we are studying — literary facts in the his-
tory of literature, political facts in political history.
But more often they belong to a different species,
and the special historian is obliged to borrow them
from general history.

In general history the periods should be divided
according to the evolution of several species of phe-
nomena; we look for events which mark an epoch
simultaneously in several branches (the Invasion of
the Barbarians, the Reformation, the French Revo-
lution). We may thus construct periods which are
common to several branches of evolution, whose
beginning and whose end are each marked by a
single event. It is thus that the traditional division
of universal history into periods has been effected.
The sub-periods are obtained by the same process,
by taking for limits events which have produced
consequences of secondary importance.

The periods which are thus constructed according
to the events are of unequal duration. We must

250

The Grouping of Facts

not be troubled by this want of symmetry ; a period
ought not to be a fixed number of years, but the
time occupied by a distinct phase of evolution.
Now, evolution is not a regular movement ; some-
times a long series of years passes without notable
change, then come moments of rapid transformation.
On this difference Saint-Simon has founded a dis-
tinction between organic periods (of slow change) and
critical periods (of rapid change).

251

CHAPTER III

CONSTRUCTIVE REASONING

I. The historical facts supplied by documents are
never enough to fill all the blanks in such schemes
of classification and arrangement as we have been
considering. There are many questions to which
no direct answer is given by the documents ; many
features are lacking without which the complete
picture of the various states of society, of evolutions
and events, cannot be given. We are irresistibly
impelled to endeavour to fill up these gaps.

In the sciences of direct observation, when a fact
is missing from a series, it is sought for by a new
observation. In history, where we have not this
resource, we seek to extend our knowledge by the
help of reasoning. Starting from facts known to
us from the documents, we endeavour to reach new
facts by inference. If the reasoning be correct, this
method of acquiring knowledge is legitimate.

But experience shows that of all the methods of
acquiring historical knowledge, reasoning is the most
difficult to employ correctly, and the one which has
introduced the most serious errors. It should not
be used without the safeguard of a number of pre-
cautions calculated to keep the danger continually
before the mind.

(i) Reasoning should never be combined with
252

Constructive Reasoning

the analysis of a document. The reader who allows
himself to introduce into a text what the author
has not expressly put there ends by making him say
what he never intended to say.1

(2) Facts obtained by the direct examination of
documents should never be confused, with the results
obtained by reasoning. When we state a fact known
to us by reasoning only, we must not allow it to be
supposed that we have found it in the documents ;
we must disclose the method by which we have
obtained it.

(3) Unconscious reasoning must never be allowed;
there are too many chances of error. It will be
enough to make a point of putting every argument
into logical form ; in the case of bad reasoning the
major premiss is generally monstrous to an appalling
degree.

(4) If the reasoning leaves the least doubt, no
attempt must be made to draw a conclusion ; the
point treated must be left in the conjectural stage,
clearly distinguished from the definitively established
results.

(5) It is not permissible to return to a conjec-
ture and endeavour to transform it into a certainty.
Here the first impression is most likely to be right.
By reflection upon a conjecture we familiarise
ourselves with it, and end by thinking it better
established ; while the truth is, we are merely more
accustomed to it. This is a frequent mishap with
those who devote themselves to long meditation on
a small number of texts.

There are two ways of employing reasoning, one

1 We have already (p. 143) treated of this fault of method.
253

Synthetic Operations

negative, the other positive ; we shall examine them
separately.

II. The negative mode of reasoning, called also
the " argument from silence," is based on the absence
of indications with regard to a fact.1 From the cir-
cumstance of the fact not being mentioned in any
document it is inferred that there was no such fact ;
the argument is applied to all kinds of subjects,
usages of every description, evolutions, events. It
rests on a feeling which in ordinary life is expressed
by saying : " If it were true, we should have heard
of it ; " it implies a general proposition which may
be formulated thus : " If an alleged event really had
occurred, there would be some document in existence
in which it would be referred to."

In order that such reasoning should be justified
it would be necessary that every fact should have
been observed and recorded in writing, and that all
the records should have been preserved. Now, the
greater part of the documents which have been
written have been lost, and the greater part of the
events Avhich happen are not recorded in writing.
In the majority of cases the argument would be
invalid. It must therefore be restricted to the cases
where the conditions implied in it have been fulfilled.

(i) It is necessary not only that there should be
now no documents in existence which mention the
fact in question, but that there should never have
been any. If the documents are lost we can conclude

1 The discussion of this argument, which was formerly much
used in religious history, was a favourite subject with the earlier
writers who treated of methodology, and still occupies a consider-
able space in the rrincipes de In critique historique of Pere de Smedt.

254

Constructive Reasoning

nothing. The argument from silence ought, there-
fore, to be employed the more rarely the greater the
number of documents that have been lost ; it is of
much less use in ancient history than in dealing
with the nineteenth century. Some, desiring to free
themselves from this restriction, are tempted to
assume that the lost documents contained nothing
interesting ; if they were lost, say they, the reason
was that they were not worth preserving. But the
truth is, every manuscript is at the mercy of the
least accident ; its preservation or destruction is a
matter of pure chance.

(2) The fact must have been of such a kind that
it could not fail to be observed and recorded. Be-
cause a fact has not been recorded it does not follow
that it has not been observed. Any one who is
concerned in an organisation for the collection of a
particular species of facts knows how much com-
moner those facts are than people think, and how
many cases pass unnoticed or without leaving any
written trace. It is so with earthquakes, cases of
hydrophobia, whales stranded on the shore. Besides,
many facts, even those which are well known to
those who are contemporary with them, are not re-4
corded, because the official authorities prevent their
publication ; this is what happens to the secret acts
of governments and the complaints of the lower
classes. This silence, which proves nothing, greatly
impresses unreflecting historians ; it is the origin
of the widespread sophism of the "good old times."
No document relates any abuse of power by officials
or any complaints made by peasants ; therefore,
everything was regular and nobody was suffering.

255

Synthetic Operations

Before we argue from silence we should ask : Might
not this fact have failed to be recorded in any of
the documents we possess ? That which is conclu-
sive is not the absence of any document on a given
fact, but silence as to the fact in a document in
which it would naturally be mentioned.

The negative argument is thus limited to a few
clearly denned cases, (i) The author of the docu-
ment in which the fact is not mentioned had the
intention of systematically recording all the facts of
the same class, and must have been acquainted with
all of them. (Tacitus sought to enumerate the
peoples of Germany ; the Notitia dignitatum men-
tioned all the provinces of the Empire ; the absence
from these lists of a people or a province proves
that it did not then exist.) (2) The fact, if it was
such, must have affected the author's imagination
so forcibly as necessarily to enter into his concep-
tions. (If there had been regular assemblies of the
Frankish people, Gregory of Tours could not have
conceived and described the life of the Frankish
kings without mentioning them.)

III. The positive mode of reasoning begins with
a fact established by the documents, and infers some
other fact which the documents do not mention.
It is an application of the fundamental principle
of history, the analogy between present and past
humanity. In the present we observe that the
facts of humanity are connected together. Given
one fact, another fact accompanies it, either because
the first is the cause of the second, or because the
second is the cause of the first, or because both are
effects of a common cause. We assume that in the

256

Constructive Reasoning

past similar facts were connected in a similar
manner, and this assumption is corroborated by the
direct study of the past in the documents. From
a given fact, therefore, which we find in the past,
we may infer the existence of the other facts which
were connected with it.

This reasoning applies to facts of all kinds, usages,
transformations, individual incidents. We may
begin with any known fact and endeavour to infer
unknown facts from it. Now the facts of humanity,
having a common centre, man, are all connected
together, not merely facts of the same class, but
facts belonging to the most widely different classes.
There are connections, not merely between the dif-
ferent facts relating to art, to religion, to manners,
to politics, but between the facts of religion on the
one hand and the facts of art, of politics, and of
manners on the other; thus from a fact of one
species we may infer facts of all the other species.

To examine those connections between facts on
which reasonings may be founded would mean tabu-
lating all the known relations between the facts of
humanity, that is, giving a full account of all the
empirical laws of social life. Such a labour would
provide matter for a whole book.1 Here we shall
content ourselves with indicating the general rules
governing this kind of reasoning, and the precautions
to be taken against the most common errors.

The argument rests on two propositions: one is
general, and is derived from experience of human

1 This is what Montesquieu attempted in his Esprit des Lois. In
a course of lectures at the Sorbonne, I have endeavoured to give a
sketch of such a comprehensive account. — [Oh. S.j

257 B

Synthetic Operations

affairs; the other is particular, and is derived from
the documents. In practice, we begin with the
particular proposition, the historical fact : Salamis
bears a Phoenician name. We then look for a
general proposition : the language of the name of
a city is the language of the people which founded
it. And we conclude : Salamis, bearing a Phoenician
name, was founded by the Phoenicians.

In order that the conclusion may be certain, two
conditions are neeessar}'.

(i) The general proposition must be accurately
true ; the two facts which it declares to be connected
must be connected in such a way that the one is
never found without the other. If this condition
were completely satisfied we should have a law, in
the scientific sense of the word ; but in dealing with
the facts of humanity — apart from those physical con-
ditions whose laws are established by the regular
sciences — we can only work with empirical laws
obtained by rough determinations of general facts
which are not analysed in such a manner as to educe
their true causes. These empirical laws are approxi-
mately true only when they relate to a numerous
body of facts, for we can never quite know how far
each is necessary to produce the result. The pro-
position relating to the language of the name of a
city does not go enough into detail to be always
true. Petersburg is a German name, Syracuse in
America bears a Greek name. Other conditions must
be fulfilled before we can be sure that the name is
connected with the nationality of the founders. We
should, therefore, only employ such propositions as
go into detail.

258

Constructive Reasoning

(2) In order to employ a general proposition
which goes into detail, we must have a detailed
knowledge of the particular fact ; for it is not till
after this fact has been established that we look for
an empirical general law on which to found an argu-
ment. We shall begin, then, by studying the parti-
cular conditions of the case (the situation of Salamis,
the habits of the Greeks and Phoenicians) ; we shall
not work on a single detail, but on an assemblage of
details.

Thus, in historical reasoning it is necessary to have
(1) an accurate general proposition; (2) a detailed
knowledge of a past fact. It is bad workmanship
to assume a false general proposition — to suppose,
for example, as Augustin Thierry did, that every
aristocracy had its origin in a conquest. It is
bad workmanship, again, to found an argument
on an isolated detail (the name of a city). The
nature of these errors indicates the precautions to
be taken.

(1) The spontaneous tendency is to take as a
basis of reasoning those " common-sense truths "
which form nearly the whole of our knowledge of
social life. Now, the greater part of these are to
some extent false, for the science of social life is
still imperfect. And the chief danger in them lies
in the circumstance that we use them unconsciously.
The safest precaution will be always to formulate the
supposed law on which we propose to base an argu-
ment. In every instance where such and such a
fact occurs, it is certain that such and such another
fact occurs also. If this proposition is obviously
false, we shall at once see it to be so ; if it is too

259

Synthetic Operations

general, we shall inquire what new conditions may
be introduced to make it accurate.

(2) A second spontaneous impulse leads us to
draw consequences from isolated facts, even of the
slightest kind (or rather, the idea of each fact
awakens in us, by association, the idea of other
facts). This is the natural procedure in the history
of literature. Each circumstance in the life of an
author supplies material for reasoning ; we construct
by conjecture all the influences which could have
acted upon him, and we assume that they did act
upon him. All the branches of history which study
a single species of facts, isolated from every other
species (language, arts, private law, religion), are ex-
posed to the same danger, because they deal with
fragments of human life, not with comprehensive
collections of phenomena. But few conclusions are
firmly established except those which rest on a
comprehensive body of .data. We do not make a
diagnosis from a single symptom, but from a number
of concurrent symptoms. The precaution to be
taken will be to avoid Avorking with an isolated
detail or an abstract fact. We must have before
our minds actual men, as affected by the principal
conditions under which they lived.

We must be prepared to realise but rarely the
conditions of a certain inference ; we are too little
acquainted with the laws of social life, and too
seldom know the precise details of an historical
fact. Thus most of our reasonings will only afford
presumptions, not certainties. But it is with reason-
ings as with documents.1 When several presump-

1 See p. 204.
260

Constructive Reasoning

tions all point in the same direction they confirm
each other, and end by producing a legitimate
certitude. History fills up some of its gaps by an
accumulation of reasonings. Doubts remain as to
the Phoenician origin of various Greek cities, but
there is no doubt about the presence of the
Phoenicians in Greece.

261

CHAPTER IV

THE CONSTRUCTION OF GENERAL FORMULAE

I. Suppose we had methodically arranged all the
historical facts established by the analysis of
documents, or by reasoning; we should possess a
system atised inventory of the whole of history,
and the work of construction would be complete.
Ought history to stop at this point ? The question
is warmly debated, and we cannot avoid giving
an answer, for it is a question with a practical
bearing.

Critical scholars, who are accustomed to collect
all the facts relating to their speciality, without
any personal preference, are inclined to regard a
complete, accurate, and objective collection of facts
as the prime requisite. All historical facts have
an equal right to a place in history ; to retain some
as being of greater importance, and reject the rest
as comparatively unimportant, would be to introduce
the subjective element of choice, variable according
to individual fancy ; history cannot sacrifice a single
fact.

Against this very reasonable view there is nothing
to be urged except a material difficulty ; this, how-
ever, is enough, for it is the practical motive of all
the sciences : we mean the impossibility of acquiring
or communicating complete knowledge. A body of

262

The Construction of General Formula

history in which no fact was sacrificed would have
to contain all the actions, all the thoughts, all the
adventures of all men at all times. It would form
a total which no one could possibly make himself
master of, not for want of materials, but for want
of time. This, indeed, applies, as things are, to
certain voluminous collections of documents : the
collected reports of parliamentary debates contain
the whole history of the various assemblies, but to
learn their history from these sources would require
more than a lifetime.

Every science must take into consideration the
practical conditions of life, at least so far as it
claims to be a real science, a science which it is
possible to know. Any ideal which ends by making
knowledge impossible impedes the establishment of
the science.

Science is a saving of time and labour, effected
by a process which provides a rapid means of learn-
ing and understanding facts ; it consists in the slow
collection of a quantity of details and their conden-
sation into portable and incontrovertible formulae.
History, which is more encumbered with details
than any other science, has the choice between
two alternatives : to be complete and unknowable,
or to be knowable and incomplete. All the other
sciences have chosen the second alternative ; they
abridge and they condense, preferring to take the
risk of mutilating and arbitrarily combining the facts
to the certainty of being unable either to understand
or communicate them. Scholars have preferred to
confine themselves to the periods of ancient history,
where chance, which has destroyed nearly all the

263

Synthetic Operations

sources of information, has freed them from the
responsibility of choosing between facts by depriving
them of nearly all the means of knowing them.

History, in order to constitute itself a science,
must elaborate the raw material of facts. It must
condense them into manageable form by means of
descriptive formulae, qualitative and quantitative.
It must search for those connections between facts
which form the ultimate conclusions of every
science.

II. The facts of humanity, with their complex and
varied character, cannot be reduced like chemical
facts to a few simple formulae. Like the other
sciences which deal with life, history needs descrip-
tive formulae in order to express the nature of the
different phenomena.

In order to be manageable, a formula must be
short ; in order to give an exact idea of the facts, it
must be precise. Now, in the knowledge of human
affairs, precision can only be obtained by attention
to characteristic details, for these alone enable us to
understand how one fact differed from others, and
what there was in it peculiar to itself. There is
thus a conflict between the need of brevity, which
leads us to look for concrete formulae, and the neces-
sity of being precise, which requires us to adopt
detailed formulae. Formulae which are too short
make science vague and illusory, formulae which are
too long encumber it and make it useless. This
dilemma can only be evaded by a, perpetual com-
promise, the principle of which is to compress the
facts by omitting all that is not necessary for the
purpose of representing them to the mind, and to

264

The Construction of General Formulae

stop at the point where omission would suppress
some characteristic feature.

This operation, which is difficult in itself, is still
further complicated by the state in which the facts
which are to be condensed into formulae present
themselves. According to the nature of the docu-
ments from which they are derived, they come to us
in all the different degrees of precision : from the
detailed narrative which relates the smallest episodes
(the battle of Waterloo) down to the barest mention
in a couple of words (the victory of the Austrasians
at Testry). On different facts of the same kind we
possess an amount of details which is infinitely vari-
able according as the documents give us a complete
description or a mere mention. How are we to
organise into a common whole, items of knowledge
which differ so widely in point of precision ? When
facts are known to us from a vague word of general
import, we cannot reduce them to a less degree of
generality and a greater degree of precision ; we do
not know the details. If we add them conjecturally
we shall produce an historical novel. This is what
Augustin Thierry did in the case of his BAcits initro-
vingiens. When facts are known in detail, it is
always easy to reduce them to a greater degree of
generality by suppressing characteristic details ; this
is what is done by the authors of abridgements.
But the result of this procedure would be to reduce
history to a mass of vague generalities, uniform for
the whole of time except for the proper names
and the dates. It would be a dangerous method
of introducing symmetry, to bring all facts to a
common degree of generality by levelling them all

265

Synthetic Operations

to the condition of those which are the most im-
perfectly known. In those cases, therefore, where
the documents give details, our descriptive formulae
should always retain the characteristic features of
the facts.

In order to construct these formulae we must
return to the set of questions which we employed
in grouping the facts, we must answer each question,
and compare the answers. We shall then combine
them into as condensed and as precise a formula
as possible, taking care to keep a fixed sense for
every word. This may appear to be a matter of
style, but what we have in view here is not merely
a principle of exposition, necessary for the sake of
being intelligible to the reader, it is a precaution
which the author ought to take on his own account.
The facts of society are of an elusive nature, and
for the purpose of seizing and expressing them, fixed
and precise language is an indispensable instrument ;
no historian is complete without good language.

It will be well to make the greatest possible use
of concrete and descriptive terms : their meaning
is always clear. It will be prudent to designate
collective groups only by collective, not by abstract
names (royalty, State, democracy, Reformation, Revo-
lution), and to avoid personifying abstractions. We
think we are simply using metaphors, and then we
are carried away by the force of the words. Cer-
tainly abstract terms have something very seductive
about them, they give a scientific appearance to a
proposition. But it is only an appearance, behind
which scholasticism is apt to be concealed ; the
word, having no concrete meaning, becomes a purely

266

The Construction of General Formula

verbal notion (like the soporific virtue of which
Moliere speaks). As long as our notions on social
phenomena have not been reduced to truly scientific
formulae, the most scientific course will be to express
them in terms of every-day experience.

In order to construct a formula, we should know
beforehand what elements ought to enter into it.
We must here make a distinction between general
facts (habits and evolutions) and unique facts
(events).

III. General facts consist in actions which are
often repeated, and are common to a number of
men. We have to determine their character, extent,
and duration.

In order to formulate their character, we combine
all the features which constitute a fact (habit, insti-
tution) and distinguish it from all others. We
unite Under the same formula all the individual
cases which greatly resemble each other, by neglect-
ing the individual differences.

This concentration is performed without effort
in the case of habits which have to do with forms
(language, handwriting), and in the case of all
intellectual habits ; those who practised these habits
have already given them expression in formulae,
which we have only to collect. The same holds
of these institutions which are sanctioned by ex-
pressly formulated rules (regulations, laws, private
statutes). Accordingly the special branches of his-
tory were the first to yield methodical formulae. On
the other hand, these special branches do not go
beyond superficial and conventional facts, they do
not reach the real actions and thoughts of men :

267

Synthetic Operations

in language they deal with written words, not the
real pronunciation ; in religion with official dogmas
and rites, not with the real beliefs of the mass of
the people ; in morals with avowed precepts, not
with the effective ideals ; in institutions with official
rules, not with the real practice. On all these
subjects the knowledge of conventional forms must
some day be supplemented by a parallel study of
the real habits.

It is much more difficult to embrace in a single
formula a habit which is composed of real actions,
as is the case with economic phenomena, private
life, politics ; for we have to find in the different
actions those common characteristics which consti-
tute the habit; or, if this work has already been
done in the documents, and condensed into a
formula (the most common case), we must criticise
this formula in order to make sure that it really
represents a homogeneous habit.

The same difficulty occurs in constructing the
formula for a group ; we have to describe the char-
acteristic common to all the members of the group
and to find a collective name which shall exactly
designate it. In documents there is no lack of
names of groups; but, as they have their origin
in usage, many of them correspond but ill to the
real groups ; we have to criticise these names to
fix their precise meaning, sometimes to correct their
application.

This first operation should yield formulae expres-
sive of the conventional and real characteristics of
all the habits of the different groups.

In order to fix the precise extent of a habit we
268

The Construction of General Formula

shall seek the most distant points where it appears
(this will give the area of distribution), and the
region where it is most common (the centre).
Sometimes the operation takes the form of a map
(for example the map of the tumuli and the dolmens
of France). It will also be necessary to indicate
the groups of men who practised each habit, and
the sub-groups in which it was most pronounced.

The formula should also indicate the duration of
the habit. We shall look for the extreme cases,
the first and the last appearance of the form, the
doctrine, the usage, the institution, the group. But
it will not be enough to note the two isolated cases,
the earliest and the most recent ; we must ascertain
the period in which it was really active.

The formula of an evolution ought to indicate the
successive variations in the habit, giving in each
case precise limits of extent and duration. Then, by
comparing all the variations, it will be possible to
determine the general course of the evolution. The
general formula will indicate when and where the
evolution began and ended, and the nature of the
change which it effected. All evolutions present
common features which enable them to be divided
into stages. Every habit (usage or institution) be-
gins by being the spontaneous act of several indi-
viduals; when others imitate them it becomes a
usage. Similarly social functions are in the first
instance performed by persons who undertake them
spontaneously, when these persons are recognised by
others they acquire an official status. This is the
first stage ; individual initiative followed by general
imitation and recognition. The usage becomes tradi-

269

Synthetic Operations

tional and is transformed into an obligatory custom
or rule ; the persons acquire a permanent status and
are invested with powers of material or moral con-
straint. This is the stage of tradition and authority ;
very often it is the last stage, and continues till the
society is destroyed. The usage is relaxed, the
rules are violated, the persons in authority cease
to be obeyed ; this is the stage of revolt and decom-
position. Finally, in certain civilised societies, the
rule is criticised, the persons in authority are cen-
sured, by the action of a part of the , subjects a
rational change is effected in the composition of
the governing body, which is subjected to super-
vision ; this is the stage of reform and of checks.

IV. In the case of unique facts we cannot expect
to bring several together under a common formula,
for the nature of these facts is to occur but once.
However, it is imperatively necessary to abridge,
we cannot preserve all the acts of all the members
of an assembly or of all the officers of a state. Many
individuals and many facts must be sacrificed.

How are we to choose ? Personal tastes and
patriotism give rise to preferences for congenial
characters and for local events ; but the only prin-
ciple of selection which can be employed by all
historians in common is that which is based on the
part played in the evolution of human affairs. We
ought to retain those persons and those events which
have visibly influenced the course of an evolution.
We may recognise them by our inability to describe
the evolution without mentioning them. The men
are those who have modified the state of a society
either by the creation or the introduction of a habit

270

The Construction of General Formula

(artists, men of science, inventors, founders, apostles),
or as directors of a movement, heads of states, of
parties, of armies. The events are those which have
brought about changes in the habits or the state of
societies.

In order to construct a formula descriptive of an
historical person, we must take particulars from his
biography and his habits. From his biography we
shall take those facts which determined his career,
formed his habits, and occasioned the actions by
which he influenced society. These comprise physio-
logical conditions (physique, temperament, state of
health),1 the educational influences, the social con-
ditions to which he was subject. The history of
literature has accustomed us to researches of this
kind.

Among the habits of a man it is necessary to
determine his fundamental conceptions relating to
the class of facts in which his influence was felt,
his conception of life, his knowledge, his predomi-
nating tastes, his habitual occupations, his principles
of conduct. From these details, in which there is
infinite variety, an impression is formed of the
man's " character," and the collection of these char-
acteristic features constitutes his " portrait," or, to
use a favourite phrase of the day, his " psychology."
This exercise, which is still held in great esteem,
dates from the time when history was still a branch
of literature ; it is doubtful whether it can ever be-

1 Michelet has discredited the study of physiological influences
by the abuse which he has made of it in the last part of his " His-
tory of France " ; it is, however, indispensable for the understanding
of a man's career.

27I

Synthetic Operations

come a scientific process. There is perhaps no sure
method of summing up the character of a man,
even in his lifetime, still less when we can only
know him indirectly through the medium of docu-
ments. The controversies relative to the interpreta-
tion of the conduct of Alexander are a good example
of this uncertainty.

If, however, we take the risk of seeking a for-
mula to describe a character, there are two natural
temptations against which we must guard : ( i ) We
must not construct the formula out of the person's
assertions in regard to himself. (2) The study of
imaginary personages (dramas and novels) has ac-
customed us to seek a logical connection between
the various sentiments and the various acts of a
man; a character, in literature, is constructed logi-
cally. This search for coherency must not be
transferred to the study of real men. We are less
likely to do so in the case of those whom we
observe in their lifetime, because we see too many
characteristics in them which could not enter into
a coherent formula. But the absence of documents,
by suppressing those characteristics which would
have checked us, encourages us to arrange the very
small number of those which remain in the form
of a stage-character. This is why the great men
of antiquity seem to us to have been much more
logical than our contemporaries are.

How are we to construct a formula for an event?
The imperative need of simplification causes us to
combine under a single name an enormous mass of
minute facts which are perceived in the lump, and
between which we vaguely feel that there is a con-

272

The Construction of General Formula

nection (a battle, a war, a reform). The facts which
are thus combined are such facts as have conduced
to a common result. That is how the common
notion of an event arises, and there is no more
scientific conception to put in its place. Facts, then,
are to be grouped according to their consequences ;
those which have had no visible consequences dis-
appear, the others are fused into a certain number of
aggregates which we call events.

In order to describe an event, it is necessary to
give precise indications (i) of its character, (2) of
its extent.

(1) By the character of an event we mean the
features which distinguish it from every other event,
not merely the external conditions of date and
place, but the manner in which it occurred, and its
immediate causes. The following are the items of
information which the formula should contain. One
or more men, in such and such mental states (con-
ceptions, motives of the action), working under such
and such material conditions (locality, instrument),
performed such and such actions, which had for
their result such and such a modification. For the
determination of the motives of the actions, the only
method is to compare the actions, firstly, with the
declarations of those who performed them ; secondly,
with the interpretation of those who witnessed their
performance. There is often a doubt remaining :
this is the field of party polemics; every one attri-
butes noble motives to the actions of his, own party
and discreditable motives to those of the opposite
party. But actions described without any indication
of motive would be unintelligible.

273 s

Synthetic Operations

(2) The extension of the event will be indicated
both in space (the place where it happened, and the
region in which its immediate effects were felt) and
in time, the moment when its realisation began, and
the moment when the result was brought about.

V. Descriptive formulas relating to characters,
being merely qualitative, only give an abstract idea of
the facts ; in order to realise the place they occupied
in reality, quantity is necessary. It is not a matter
of indifference whether a given usage was practised
by a hundred men or by millions.

For the purpose of introducing quantity into
formulae we have at our disposal several methods,
of various degrees of imperfection, which help us
to attain the end in view with various degrees of
precision. Arranged in descending order of pre-
cision they are as follows : —

(1) Measurement is a perfectly scientific procedure,
for equal numbers represent absolutely identical
values. But a common unit is necessary, and that
can only be had for time and for physical pheno-
mena (lengths, surfaces, weights). Figures relating
to production and sums of money are the essential
elements in the statement of economic and financial
facts. But facts of the psychological order remain
inaccessible to measurement.

(2) Enumeration, which is the process employed
in statistics,1 is applicable to all the facts which

1 On the subject of statistics, a method which is now perfected,
a good summary with a bibliography will be found in the Hand-
v'orterbuch der Staatswissenschaftcn, Jena, 1S90-94, la. 8vo. and two
good methodical treatises, J. von. Mayr, Theoretische Statistik and
Bcvolkerungsstatistik, in the collection of Marquardsen and Seydel,
Freiburg, 1895 an(* 1897, la. 8vo.

274

The Construction of General Formula

have in common a definite characteristic which can
be made use of for counting them. The facts which
are thus comprehended under a single number do
not all belong to the same species, they may have
in common but a single characteristic, abstract
(crime, lawsuit) or conventional (workman, lodg-
ing) ; the figures merely indicate the number of cases
in which a given characteristic is met with ; they
do not represent a homogeneous whole. A natural
tendency is to confuse number with measurement,
and to suppose that facts are known with scientific
precision because it has been possible to apply
number to them ; this is an illusion to be guarded
against, we must not take the figures which give
the number of a population or an army for the
measure of its importance.1 Still, enumeration yields
results which are necessary for the construction of
formulae relating to groups. But the operation is
restricted to those cases in which it is possible to
know all the units of a given species lying within
given limits, for it is performed by first ticking off,
then adding. Before undertaking a retrospective
enumeration, therefore, it will be well to make sure
that the documents are complete enough to exhibit
all the units which are to be enumerated. As to
figures given in documents, they are to be distrusted.
(3) Valuation is a kind of incomplete enumera-
tion applying to a portion of the field, and made on
the supposition that the same proportions hold good
through the whole of the field. It is an expedient to

1 As is dene by Boardeau {V Histoire ct les Historiens, Paris, 1888,
8vo), who proposes to reduce the whole of history to a series of
statistics.

275

Synthetic Operations

which, in history, it is often necessary to have recourse
when documents are unequally abundant for the
different divisions of the subject. The result is open
to doubt, unless we are sure that the portion to
which enumeration was applied was exactly similar
to the remainder.

(4) Sampling is a process of enumeration restricted
to a few units taken at different points in the field
of investigation ; we calculate the proportion of cases
(say 90 per cent.) where a given characteristic occurs,
we assume that the same proportion holds through-
out, and if there are several categories we obtain the
proportion between them. In history this procedure
is applicable to facts of every kind, for the purpose
of determining either the proportion between the
different forms or usages which occur within a given
region or period, or the proportion which obtains,
within a heterogeneous group, between members
belonging to different classes. This procedure gives
us an approximate idea of the frequency of facts
and the proportion between the different elements
of a society ; it can even show what species of facts
are most commonly found together, and are there-
fore probably connected. But in order that the
method may be employed correctly it is necessary
that the samples should be representative of the
whole, and not of a part which might possibly be
exceptional in character. They should therefore be
chosen at very different points, and under very dif-
ferent conditions, in order that the exceptions may
compensate each other. It is not enough to take
them at points which are distant from each other ;
for example, on the different frontiers of a country,

276

The Construction of General Formula

for the very circumstance of situation on a frontier
is an exceptional condition. Verification may be
had by following the methods by which anthropolo-
gists obtain averages.

(5) Generalisation is only an instinctive process
of simplification. As soon as we perceive a certain
characteristic in an object, we extend this charac-
teristic to all other objects which at all resemble it.
In all human concerns, where the facts are always
complex, we make generalisations unconsciously ; we
attribute to a whole people the habits of a few indi-
viduals, or those of the first group forming part of
the people which comes within our knowledge ; we
extend to a whole period habits which are ascertained
to have existed at a given moment. This is the
most active of all the causes of historical error, and
one whose influence is felt in every department, in
the study of usages and of institutions, even in the
appreciation of the morality of a people.1 Gene-
ralisation rests on a vague idea that all facts which
are contiguous to each other, or which resemble each
other in some point, are similar at all points. It is
an unconscious and ill-performed process of sampling.
It may therefore be made correct by being subjected
to the conditions of a well-performed process of
sampling. We must examine the cases on which
we propose to found a generalisation and ask our-
selves, What right have we to generalise ? That is,
what reason have we for assuming that the charac-
teristic discovered in these cases will occur in the
remaining thousands of cases ? that the cases chosen

1 A good example will be found in Lacombe, De VHistoire Con-
tidirie, Comme Science, p. 146.

277

Synthetic Operations

resemble the average ? The only valid reason would
be that these cases are representative of the whole.
We are thus brought back to the process of
methodical" sampling.

The right method of conducting the operation is
as follows : ( i ) We must fix the precise limits of
the field within which we intend to generalise (that
is, to assume the similarity of all the cases), we must
determine the country, the group, the class, the period
as to which we are to generalise. Care must be
taken not to make the field too large by confusing
a part with the whole (a Greek or Germanic people
with the whole Greek or Germanic race). (2) We
must make sure that the facts lying within the field
resemble each other in the points on which we wish
to generalise, and therefore we have to distrust those
vague names under which are comprehended groups
of very different character (Christians, French, Aryans,
Romans). (3) We must make sure that the facts
from which we propose to generalise are representa-
tive samples, that they really belong to the field of
investigation, for it does happen sometimes that men
or facts are taken as specimens of one group when
they really belong to another. Nor must they be
exceptional, as is to be presumed in all cases when
the conditions are exceptional ; authors of documents
tend to record by preference those facts which sur-
prise them, hence exceptional cases occupy in docu-
ments a space which is out of proportion to their
real number; this is one of the chief sources of
error. (4) The number of samples necessary to
support a generalisation is the greater the less
ground there is for supposing a resemblance between

278

The Construction of General Formula

all the cases occurring within the field of investiga-
tion. A small number may suffice in treating of
points in which men tend to bear a strong resem-
blance to each other, either by imitation and con-
vention (language, rites, ceremonies), or from the
influence of custom and obligatory regulations (social
institutions, political institutions in countries where
the authorities are obeyed). A large number is
requisite for facts where individual initiative plays
a more important part (art, science, morality), and
sometimes, as in respect of private conduct, all
generalisation is as a rule impossible.

VI. Descriptive formulae are in no science the
final result of the work. It still remains to group
the facts in such a way as to bring out their
collective import, it still remains to search for their
mutual relations ; these are the general conclusions.
History, by reason of the imperfection of its mode
of acquiring knowledge, needs, in addition, a pre-
liminary operation for determining the bearing of
the knowledge acquired.1

The work of criticism has supplied us with

1 We have thought it useless to discuss here the question
whether history ought, in accordance with the ancient tradition,
to fulfil yet another function, whether it ought to pass judgment
on men and events, that is to supplement the description of facts
by expressions of approbation or censure, either from the point
of view of a moral ideal, general or particular (the ideal of a
sect, a party, or a nation), or from the practical point of view, by
examining, as Polybius did, whether historical actions were well
or ill adapted to their purpose. An addition of this kind could
be made to any descriptive study : the naturalist might express
his sympathy with or his admiration for an animal, he might
condemn the ferocity of the tiger, and praise the devotion of the
hen to her chickens. But it is obvious that in history, as in every
other subject, judgments of this kind are foreign to science.

279

Synthetic Operations

nothing but a number of isolated remarks on the
value of the knowledge which the documents have
permitted us to acquire. These must be combined.
We shall therefore take a whole group of facts
entered under a common heading — a particular
class of facts, a country, a period, an event — and
we shall summarise the results yielded by the
criticism of particular facts so as to obtain a
general formula. We shall have to take into con-
sideration: (i) the extent, (2) the value of our
knowledge.

(1) We shall ask ourselves what are the blanks
left by the documents. By working through the
scheme used for the grouping of facts it is easy
to discover what are the classes of facts on which
we lack information. In the case of evolution, we
notice which links are missing in the chain of
successive modifications ; in the case of events, what
episodes, what groups of actors are still unknown
to us ; what facts enter or disappear from the field
of our knowledge without our being able to trace
their beginning or end. We ought to construct,
mentally at any rate, a tabulated scheme of the
points on which we are ignorant, in order to keep
before our minds the distance separating the know-
ledge we have from a perfect knowledge.

(2) The value of our knowledge depends on the
value of our documents. Criticism has given us
indications on this point in each separate case, these
indications, so far as relating to a given body of
facts, must be summarised under a few heads. Does
our knowledge come originally from direct observa-
tion, from written tradition, or from oral tradition ?

280

The Construction of General Formula

Do we possess several traditions of different bias,
or a single tradition? Do we possess documents
of different classes or of one single class ? Is our
information vague or precise, detailed or summary,
literary or positive, official or confidential ?

The natural tendency is to forget, in construc-
tion, the results yielded by criticism, to forget the
incompleteness of our knowledge and the elements
of doubt in it. An eager desire to increase to
the greatest possible extent the amount of our
information and the number of our conclusions
impels us to seek emancipation from all negative
restrictions, We thus run a great risk of using
fragmentary and suspicious sources of information
for the purpose of forming general impressions, just
as if we were in possession of a complete record.
It is easy to forget the existence of those facts
which the documents do not describe (economic
facts, slaves in antiquity), it is easy to exaggerate
the space occupied by facts which are known to
us (Greek art, Roman inscriptions, mediaeval monas-
teries). We instinctively estimate the importance
of facts by the number of the documents which
mention them. We forget the peculiar character
of the documents, and, when they all have a
common origin, we forget that they have all
subjected the facts to the same distortions, and
that their community of origin renders verifi-
cation impossible; we submissively reproduce the
bias of the tradition (Roman, orthodox, aristo-
cratic).

In order to resist these natural tendencies, it is
enough to pass in review the whole body of facts

281

Synthetic Operations

and the whole body of tradition, before attempting
to draw any general conclusion.

VII. Descriptive formulae give the particular cha-
racter of each small group of facts. In order to
obtain a general conclusion, we must combine these
detailed results into a general formula. We must
not compare together isolated details or secondary
characteristics,1 but groups of facts which resemble
each other in a whole set of characteristics.

We thus form an aggregate (of institutions, of
groups of men, of events). Following the method
indicated above, we determine its distinguishing
characteristics, its extent, its duration, its quantity
or importance.

As we form groups of greater and greater gene-
rality we drop, with each new degree of generality,
those characteristics which vary, and retain those
which are common to all the members of the new
group. We must stop at the point where nothing
is left except the characteristics common to the
whole of humanity. The result is the condensation
into a single formula of the general character of
an order of facts, of a language, a religion, an
art, an economic organisation, a society, a govern-
ment, a complex event (such as the Invasion or the
Reformation).

As long as these comprehensive formulae remain
isolated the conclusion is incomplete. And as it is
no longer possible to fuse them into higher gene-

1 Comparison between two facts of detail belonging to very dif-
ferent aggregates (for example the comparison of Abd-el-Kader with
Jagurtha, of Napoleon with Sforza) is a striking method of exposi-
tion, but not a means of reaching a scientific conclusion.

282

The Construction of General Formula

ralisations, we feel the need of comparing them for
the purpose of classification. This classification may
be attempted by two methods.

( i ) We may compare together similar categories
of special facts, language, religions, arts, governments,
taking them from the whole of humanity, and classi-
fying together those which most resemble each other.
We obtain families of languages, religions, and gov-
ernments, which we may again classify and arrange
among themselves. This is an abstract kind of clas-
sification ; it isolates one species of facts from all
the others, and thus renounces all claim to exhibit
causes. It has the advantage of being rapidly per-
formed and of yielding a technical vocabulary which
is useful for designating facts.

(2) We may compare real groups of real indivi-
duals, we may take societies which figure in history
and classify them according to their similarities.
This is a concrete classification analogous to that
of zoology, in which, not functions, but whole animals
are classified. It is true that the groups are less
clearly marked than in zoology; nor is there a
general agreement as to the characteristics in respect
of which we are to look for resemblances. Are we
to choose the economic or the political organisation
of the groups, or their intellectual condition ? No
principle of choice has as yet become obligatory.

History has not yet succeeded in establishing
a scientific system of comprehensive classification.
Possibly human groups are not sufficiently homo-
geneous to furnish a solid basis of comparison, and
not sharply enough divided to be treated as com-
parable units.

283

Synthetic Operations

VIII. The study of the relations between simul-
taneous facts consists in a search for the connections
between all the facts of different species which occur
in a given society. We have a vague consciousness
that the different habits which are separated by
abstraction and langed under different categories
(art, religion, political institutions), are not isolated
in reality, that they have common characteristics,
and that they are closely enough connected for a
change in one of them to bring about a change in
another. This is a fundamental idea of the Esprit
des Lois of Montesquieu. This bond of connection,
sometimes called consensus, has received the name of
Zusammenhang from the German school. From this
conception has arisen the theory of the Volksgeist
(the mind of a people), a counterfeit of which has
within the last few years been introduced into France
under the name of " ame nationale." This concep-
tion is also at the bottom of the theory regarding
the soul of society which Lamprecht has expounded.

After the rejection of these mystical conceptions
there remains a vague but incontrovertible fact, the
" solidarity " which exists between the different habits
of one and the same people. In order to study it
with precision it would be necessary to analyse it,
and a connecting bond cannot be analysed. It is
thus quite natural that this part of social science
should have remained a refuge for mystery and
obscurity.

By the comparison of different societies which
resemble or differ from each other in a given de-
partment (religion or government), with the object
of discovering in what other departments they re-

284

The Construction of General Formulas

semble or differ from each other, it is possible that
interesting empirical results might be obtained. But,
in order to explain the consensus, it is necessary to
work back to the facts which have produced it, the
common causes of the various habits. We are thus
obliged to undertake the investigation of causes, and
we enter the province of what is called philosophical
history, because it investigates what was formerly
called the philosophy of facts — that is to say, their
permanent relations.

IX. The necessity of rising above the simple
determination of facts in order to explain them by
their causes, a necessity which has governed the
development of all the sciences, has at length been
felt even in the study of history. Hence have arisen
systematic philosophies of history, and attempts to
discover historical laws and causes. We cannot here
enter into a critical examination of these attempts,
which the nineteenth century has produced in so
. great number ; we shall merely indicate what are
the ways in which the problem has been attacked,
and what obstacles have prevented a scientific solu-
tion from being reached.

The most natural method of explanation consists
in the assumption that a transcendental cause, Pro-
vidence, guides the whole course of events towards
an end which is known to God.1 This explanation
can be but a metaphysical doctrine, crowning the
work of science ; for the distinguishing feature of

1 This system is still followed by several contemporary authors,
the Belgian jurist Laurent in his Etudes sur Vhistoire de I'humanite,
the German Rocholl, and even Flint, the English historian of the
philosophy of history.

285

Synthetic Operations

scieDce is that it only studies efficient causes. The
historian is not called upon to investigate the first
cause or final causes any more than the chemist or
the naturalist. And, in fact, few writers on history
nowadays stop to discuss the theory of Providence
in its theological form.

But the tendency to explain historical facts by
transcendental causes survives in more modern
theories in which metaphysic is disguised under
scientific forms. The historians of the nineteenth
century have been so strongly influenced by their
philosophical education that most of them, some-
times unconsciously, introduce metaphysical formulae
into the construction of history. It will be enough
to enumerate these systems, and point out their
metaphysical character, so that reflecting historians
may be warned to distrust them.

The theory of the rational character of history
rests on the notion that every real historical fact is
at the same time " rational " — that is, in conformity
with an intelligible comprehensive plan ; ordinarily
it is tacitly assumed that every social fact has its
raison d'etre in the development of society — that is,
that it ends by turning to the advantage of society ;
hence the cause of every institution is sought for in
the social need it was originally meant to supply.1
This is the fundamental idea of Hegelianism, if not
with Hegel, at least with the historians who have
been his disciples (Ranke, Mommsen, Droysen, in
France Cousin, Taine, and Michelet). This is a lay

1 Thus Taine, in Les origines de la France Contemporaine, explains
the origin of the privileges of the ancien regime by the seryices
formerly rendered by the privileged classes.

286

The Construction of General Formula

disguise of the old theological theory of final causes
which assumes the existence of a Providence occu-
pied in guiding humanity in the direction of its
interests. This is a consoling, but not a scientific
a priori hypothesis ; for the observation of historical
facts does not indicate that things have always hap-
pened in the most rational way, or in the way most
advantageous to men, nor that institutions have had
any other cause than the interest of those who estab-
lished them ; the facts, indeed, point rather to the
opposite conclusion.

From the same metaphysical source has also
sprung the Hegelian theory of the ideas which are
successively realised in history through the medium
of successive peoples. This theory, which has been
popularised in France by Cousin and Michelet, has
had its day, even in Germany, but it has been re-
vived, especially in Germany, in the form of the
historical mission (Bene/) which is attributed to
peoples and persons. It will here be enough to
observe that the very metaphors of "idea" and
" mission " imply a transcendental anthropomorphic
cause.

From the same optimistic conception of a rational
guidance of the world is derived the theory of the
continuous and necessary progress of humanity.
Although it has been adopted by the positivists,
this is merely a metaphysical hypothesis. In the
ordinary sense of the word, " progress " is merely a
subjective expression denoting those changes which
follow the direction of our preferences. But, even
taking the word in the objective sense given to
it by Spencer (an increase in the variety and co-

287

Synthetic Operations

ordination of social phenomena), the study of his-
torical facts does not point to a single universal and
continuous progress of humanity, it brings before
us a number of partial and intermittent progressive
movements, and it gives us no reason to attribute
them to a permanent cause inherent in humanity
as a whole rather than to a series of local accidents.1
Attempts at a more scientific form of explanation
have had their origin in the special branches of
history (of languages, religion, law). By the separate
study of the succession of facts of a single species,
specialists have been enabled to ascertain the regular
recurrence of the same successions of facts, and these
results have been expressed in formulae which are
sometimes called laws (for example, the law of the
tonic accent) ; these are never more than empirical
laws which merely indicate successions of facts with-
out explaining them, for they do not reveal the
efficient cause. But specialists, influenced by a
natural metaphor, and struck by the regularity of
these successions, have regarded the evolution of
usages (of a word, a rite, a dogma, a rule of law),
as if it were an organic development analogous to
the growth of a plant; we hear of the "life of
words," of the " death of dogmas/' of the " growth
of myths." Then, in forgetfulness of the fact that
all these things are pure abstractions, it has been
tacitly assumed that there is a force inhering in the
word, the rite, the rule, which produces its evolution.
This is the theory of the development {Entwickelung)
of usages and institutions ; it was started in Ger-

1 A good criticism of the theory of progress will be found in
P. Lacombe, De Vhhtoire Considiree Comme Science.

288

The Construction of General Formulae

many by the " historical " school, and has dominated
all the special branches of history. The history of
languages alone has succeeded in shaking off its
influence.1 Just as usages have teen treated as if
they were existences possessing a separate life of
their own, so the succession of individuals compos-
ing the various bodies within a society (royalty,
church, senate, parliament) has been personified by
the attribution to it of a will, which is treated as an
active cause. A world of imaginary beings has thus
been created behind the historical facts, and has
replaced Providence in the explanation of them.
For our defence against this deceptive mythology
a single rule will suffice : Never seek the causes of
an historical fact without having first expressed it
concretely in terms of acting and thinking indi-
viduals. If abstractions are used, every metaphor
must be avoided which would make them play the
part of living beings.

By a comparison of the evolutions of the different
species of facts which coexist in one and the same
society, the " historical " school was led to the dis-
covery of solidarity (Zusammenhang).2 But, before
attempting to discover its causes by analysis, the
adherents of this school assumed, the existence of a
permanent general cause residing in the society itself.
And, as it was customary to personify society, a
special temperament was attributed to it, the peculiar
genius of the nation or the race, manifesting itself.

1 See the very clear declarations of one of the principal represen-
tatives of linguistic science in France, V. Henry, Antinomies Unguis-
tiques, Paris, 1896, 8vo.

2 See above, p. 284.

289 T

Synthetic Operations

in the different social activities and explaining their
solidarity.1 This was simply an hypothesis suggested
by the animal world, in which each species has
permanent characteristics. It would have been in-
adequate, for in order to explain how a given society
comes to change its character from one epoch to
another (the Greeks between the seventh and the
fourth centuries, the English between the fifteenth
and the nineteenth), it would have been necessary
to invoke the aid of external causes. And the theory
is untenable, for all the societies known to history
are groups of men without anthropological unity and
without common hereditary characteristics.

In addition to these metaphysical or metaphorical
explanations, attempts have been made to apply to
the investigation of causes in history the classical
procedure of the natural sciences : the comparison of
parallel series of successive phenomena in order to
discover those which always appear together. The
"comparative method " has assumed several different
forms. Sometimes the subject of study has been a
detail of social life (a usage, an institution, a belief,
a rule), defined in abstract terms ; its evolutions in
different societies have been compared with a view
to determine the common evolution which is to be
attributed to one and the same general cause. Thus
have arisen comparative philology, mythology, and

1 Lamprecht, in the article quoted, p. 247, after having compared
the artistic, religious, and economic evolutions of mediaeval Ger-
many, and after having shown that they can all be divided into
periods of the same duration, explains the simultaneous transforma-
tions of the different usages and institutions of a given society by
the transformations of the collective "social soul." This is only
another form of the same hypothesis.

29O

The Construction of General Formula

law. It has been proposed (in England) to give
precision to the comparative method by applying
" statistics " ; this would mean the systematic com-
parison of all known societies and the enumeration
of all the cases where two usages are found together.
This is the principle of Bacon's tables of agreement ;
it is to be feared that it will be no more fertile in
results. The defect of all such methods is that they
apply to abstract and partly arbitrary notions, some-
times merely to verbal resemblances, and do not
rest on a knowledge of the whole of the conditions
under which the facts occur.

We can conceive a more concrete method which,
instead of comparing fragments, should compare
wholes, that is entire societies, either the same
society at different stages of its evolution (England
in the sixteenth, and again in the nineteenth century),
or else the general evolution of several societies, con-
temporary with each other (England and France),
or existing at different epochs (Rome and England).
Such a method might be useful negatively, for the
purpose of ascertaining that a given fact is not the
necessary effect of another, since they are not always
found together (for example, the emancipation of
women and Christianity). But positive results are
hardly to be expected of it, for the concomitance of
two facts in several series does not show whether
one is the cause of the other, or whether both are
joint effects of a single cause.

The methodical investigation of the causes of a
fact requires an analysis of the conditions under
which the fact occurs, performed so as to isolate
the necessary condition which is its cause ; it pre-

291

Synthetic Operations

supposes, therefore, the complete knowledge of these
conditions. But this is precisely what we never
have in history. We must therefore renounce the
idea of arriving at causes by direct methods such as
are used in the other sciences.

As a matter of fact, however, historians often do
employ the notion of cause, which, as we have
shown above, is indispensable for the purpose of
formulating events and constructing periods. They
know causes partly from the authors of documents
who observed the facts, partly from the . analogy of
the causes which we all observe at the present day.
The whole history of events is a chain of obviously
and incontrovertibly connected incidents, each one
of which is the determining cause of another. The
lance- thrust of Montgomery is the cause of the death
of Henry II. ; this death is the cause of the accession
to power of the Guises, which again is the cause of
the rising of the Protestants.

The observation of causes by the authors of
documents is limited to the interconnection of
the accidental facts observed by them; these are,
in truth, the causes which are known with the
greatest certainty. Thus history, unlike the other
sciences, is better able to ascertain the causes of
particular incidents than those of general transfor-
mations, for the work is found already done in the
documents.

In the investigation of the causes of general
facts, historical construction is reduced to the ana-
logy between the past and the present. What-
ever chance there is of finding the causes which
explain the evolution of past societies must lie in the

292

The Construction of General Formulae

direct observation of the transformations of present
societies.

This is a branch of study which is not yet
firmly established; here we can only state the
principles of it.

(i) In order to ascertain the causes of the soli-
darity between the different habits of one and the
same society, it is necessary to look beyond the
abstract and conventional form which the facts
assume in language (dogma, rule, rite, institution),
and attend to the real concrete centres, which are
always thinking and acting men. Here only are
found together the different species of activity
which language separates by abstraction. Their
solidarity is to be sought for in some dominating
feature in the character or the environment of
the men which influences all the different mani-
festations of then activity. We must not expect
the same degrees of solidarity in all the species
of activity ; there will be most of it in those species
where each individual is in close dependence on
the actions of the mass (economic, social, political
life); there will be less of it in the intellectual
activities (arts, sciences), where individual initiative
has freer play.1 Documents mention most habits
(beliefs, customs, institutions) in the lump, without
distinguishing individuals ; and yet, in one and the
same society, habits vary considerably from one
man to another. It is necessary to take account
of these differences, otherwise there is a danger of

1 The historians of literature, who began by searching for the
connection between the arts and the rest of social life, thus gave
the first place to the most difficult question.

293

Synthetic Operations

explaining the actions of artists and men of science
by the beliefs and the habits of their prince or their
tradesmen.

(2) In order to ascertain the causes of an evolu-
tion, it is necessary to study the only beings which
can evolve — men. Every evolution has for its cause
a change in the material conditions or in the habits
of certain men. Observation shows us two kinds
of change. In the one case, the men remain the
same, but change their manner of acting or thinking,
either voluntarily through imitation, or by compul-
sion. In the other, the men who practised the old
usage disappear and are replaced by others who do
not practise it ; these may be strangers, or they may
be the descendants of the first set of men, but
educated in a different manner. This renewing of
the generations seems, in our day, to be the most
active cause of evolution. It is natural to suppose
that the same holds good of the past ; evolution has
been slower, the more exclusively each generation has
been formed by the imitation of its forerunners.

There is still one more question to ask. Are men
all alike, differing merely in the conditions under
which they live (education, resources, government),
and is evolution produced solely by changes in these
conditions ? Or are there groups of men with heredi-
tary differences, born with tendencies to different
activities and with aptitudes leading to different
evolutions, so that evolution may be the product,
in part at least, of the increase, the diminution, and
the displacement of these groups ? Taking the
extreme cases, the white, black, and yellow races of
mankind, the differences in aptitude are obvious ; no

294

The Construction of General Formulae

black people has ever developed a civilisation. It is
thus probable that smaller hereditary differences may
have had their share in the determination of events.
If so, historical evolution would be partly produced
by physiological and anthropological causes. But his-
tory provides us with no sure means of determining
the action of these hereditary differences between
men ; it goes no further than the conditions of their
existence. The last question of history remains
insoluble by historical methods.

295

CHAPTER V

EXPOSITION

We have still to study a question whose practical
interest is obvious : What are the forms in which
historical works present themselves ? These forms
are, in fact, very numerous. Some of them are anti-
quated ; not all are legitimate ; the best have their
drawbacks. We should ask, therefore, not only what
are the forms in which historical works appear, but
also which of these represent truly rational types of
exposition.

By " historical works " we mean here all those
which are intended to communicate results obtained
by the labour of historical construction, whatever
may be the nature, the extent, and the bearing of
these results. The critical elaboration of docu-
ments, which is treated of in Book II., and which
is preparatory to historical construction, is naturally
excluded.

Historians may differ, and up to the present have
differed, on several essential points. They have not
always had, nor have they all now, the same concep-
tion of the end aimed at by historical work ; hence
arise differences in the nature of the facts chosen,
the manner of dividing the subject, that is, of co-
ordinating the facts, the manner of presenting them,
the manner of proving them. This would be the

296

Exposition

place to indicate how " the mode of writing history "
has evolved from the beginning. But as the history of
the modes of writing history has not yet been written
well,1 we shall here content ourselves with some very
general remarks on the period prior to the second
half of the nineteenth century, confining ourselves
to what is strictly necessary for the understanding of
the present situation.

I. History was first conceived as the narration
of memorable events. To preserve the memory
and propagate the knowledge of glorious deeds, or
of events which were of importance to a man, a
family, or a people; such was the aim of history
in the time of Thucydides and Livy. In addition,
history was early considered as a collection of pre-
cedents, and the knowledge of history as a practical
preparation for life, especially political life (military
and civil). Polybius and Plutarch wrote to instruct,
they claimed to give recipes for action. Hence in
classical antiquity the subject-matter of history
consisted chiefly of political incidents, wars, and
revolutions. The ordinary framework of historical
exposition (within which the facts were usually
arranged in chronological order) was the life of

1 For the earlier epochs, consult good histories of Greek, Kornan,
and mediaeval literature which contain chapters devoted to "his-
torians." For the modern period, consult the Introduction of M.
G. Monod to vol. i. of the Revue historique; the work by F. X. v.
Wegde, Geschichte der deutschen Histo7'iographie (1885), relates only to
Germany, and is mediocre. Some "Notes on History in France in
the Nineteenth Century " have been published by C. Jullian as an
Introduction to his Extraits des historiens francais da xlxe Steele (Paris,
1897, i2mo). The history of modern historiography has still to be
written. See the partial attempt by E. Bernheim, Lehrb'uck, pp. 13
sqq.

297

Synthetic Opeeations

a person, the whole life of a people, or a particular
period in it ; there were in antiquity but few essays
in general history. As the aim of the historian was
to please or to instruct, or to please and instruct
at the same time, history was a branch of litera-
ture : there were not too many scruples on the score
of proofs ; those who worked from written docu-
ments took no care to distinguish the text of such
documents from their own text ; in reproducing
the narratives of their predecessors they adorned
them with details, and sometimes (under pretext
of being precise) with numbers, with speeches, with
reflections, and elegances. We can in a manner see
them at work in every instance where it is possible
to compare Greek and Roman historians, Ephorus
and Livy, for example, with their sources.

The writers of the Renaissance directly imitated
the ancients. For them, too, history was a literary
art with apologetic aims or didactic pretensions. In
Italy it was too often a means of gaining the favour
of princes, or a theme for declamations. This state
of affairs lasted a long time. Even in the seven-
teenth century we find, in Mezeray, an historian of
the ancient classical pattern.

However, in the historical literature of the Renais-
sance, two novelties claim our attention, in which
the mediaeval influence is incontrovertibly manifest.
On the one hand we see the retention of a form
of exposition which was unusual in antiquity, which
was created by the Catholic historians of the later
ages (Eusebius, Orosius), and which enjoyed great
favour in the Middle Ages, — that which, instead
of embracing only the history of a single man,

298

Exposition

family, or people, embraces universal history. On
the other hand there was introduced a mechanical
artifice of exposition, having its origin in a practice
common in the mediaeval schools (the gloss), which
had far-reaching consequences. The custom arose
of adding notes to printed books of history.1 Notes
have made it possible to distinguish between the
historical narrative and the documents which sup-
port it, to give references to sources, to disencumber
and illustrate the text. It was in collections of
documents, and in critical dissertations, that the
artifice of annotation was first employed ; thence
it penetrated, slowly, into historical works of other
classes.

A second period begins in the eighteenth century.
The " philosophers " then began to conceive history
as the study, not of events for their own sakes, but
of the habits of men. They were thus led to take
an interest, not only in facts of a political order,
but in the evolution of the arts, the sciences, of in-
dustry, and in manners. Montesquieu and Voltaire
personified these tendencies. The Essai sur les
mceurs is the first sketch, and, in some respects, the
masterpiece of history thus conceived. The detailed
narration of political and military events was still
regarded as the main work of history, but to this
it now became customary to add, generally by way
of supplement or appendix, a sketch of the "progress
of the human mind." The expression "history of

1 It would be interesting to find out what are the earliest printed
books furnished with notes in the modern fashion. Bibliophiles
whom we have consulted are unable to say, their attention never
having been drawn to the point.

299

Synthetic Operations

civilisation" appears before the end of the eighteenth
century. At the same time German university
professors, especially at Gottingen, were creating, in
order to supply educational needs, the new form
of the historical " manual," a methodical collection
of carefully justified facts, with no literary or other
pretensions. Collections of historical facts, made
with a view to aid in the interpretation of literary
texts, or out of mere curiosity in regard to the
things of the past, had existed from ancient times ;
but the medleys of Athengeus and Aulus Gellius,
or the vaster and better arranged compilations of
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, are by no
means to be compared with the "scientific manuals"
of which the German professors then gave the
models. These professors, moreover, contributed
towards the clearing up of the vague, general notion
which the philosophers had of " civilisation," for they
applied themselves to the organisation of the history
of languages, of literatures, of the arts, of religions,
of law, of economic phenomena, and so on, as so
many separate branches of study. Thus the domain
of history was greatly enlarged, and scientific, that
is, simple and objective, exposition began to com-
pete with the rhetorical or sententious, patriotic or
philosophical ideals of antiquity.

This competition was at first timid and obscure,
for the beginning of the nineteenth century was
marked by a literary renaissance -which renovated
historical literature. Under the influence of the
romantic movement historians sought for more vivid
methods of exposition than those employed by their
predecessors, methods better adapted to strike the

300

Exposition

imagination and rouse the emotions of the public, by
filling the mind with poetical images of vanished
realities. Some endeavoured to preserve the peculiar
colouring of the original documents, which they
adapted : " Charmed with the contemporary narra-
tives," says Barante, " I have endeavoured to write a
consecutive account which should borrow from them
their animation and interest." This leads directly
to the neglect of criticism, and to the reproduction
of whatever is effective from the literary point of
view. Others declared that the facts of the past
ought to be recounted with all the emotions of a
spectator. " Thierry," says Michelet, praising him,
"in telling us the story of Klodowig, breathes the
spirit and shows the emotion of recently invaded
France . . ." Michelet "stated the problem of his-
tory as the resuscitation of integral life in the inmost
parts of the organism." With the romantic historians
the choice of subject, of plan, of the proofs, of the
style, is dominated by an engrossing desire to pro-
duce an effect — a literary, not a scientific ambition.
Some romantic historians have slid down this in-
clined plane to the level of the " historical novel."
We know the nature of this species of literature,
which flourished so vigorously from the Abbe Bar-
thelemy and Chateaubriand down to Merimee and
Ebers, and which some are now vainly attempting
to rejuvenate. The object is to "make the scenes
of the past live again " in dramatic pictures artisti-
cally constructed with " true " colours and details.
The obvious object of the method is that it does not
provide the reader with any means of distinguishing
between the elements borrowed from the documents

301

Synthetic Operations

and the imaginary elements, not to mention the fact
that generally the documents used are not all of the
same origin, so that while the colour of each stone
may be " true " that of the mosaic is false. Dezobry's
Rome au sUch d'Auguste, Augustin Thierry's Rdcits
mtrovingiens, and other " pictures " produced at the
same epoch were constructed on the same principle,
and are subject to the same drawbacks as the his-
torical novels properly so-called.1

We may summarise what precedes by saying that,
up to about 1850, history continued to be, both for
historians and the public, a branch of literature. An
excellent proof of this lies in the fact that up till
then historians were accustomed to publish new
editions of their works, at intervals of several years,
without making any change in them, and that the
public tolerated the practice. Now every scientific
work needs to be continually recast, revised, brought
up to date. Scientific workers do not claim to give
their works an immutable form, they do not expect
to be read by posterity or to achieve personal immor-
tality; it is enough for them if the results of their
researches, corrected, it may be, and possibly trans-
formed by subsequent researches, should be incor-
porated in the fund of knowledge which forms the
scientific heritage of mankind. No one reads Newton
or Lavoisier ; it is enough for their glory that their
labours should have contributed to the production

1 It is clear that the romantic methods which are used for the
purpose of obtaining effects of local colour and "revising" the
past, often puerile in the hands of the ablest writers, are altogether
intolerable when they are employed by any others. See a good
example (criticism of a book of M. Mourin by M. Monod) in the
Revue Critique, 1874, ii. pp. 163 sqq.

302

Exposition

of works by which their own have been superseded,
and which will be, sooner or later, superseded in
their turn. It is only works of art that enjoy per-
petual youth. And the public is well aware of the
fact ; no one would ever think of studying natural
history in Buffon, whatever his opinion might be of
the merits of this stylist. But the same public is
quite ready to study history in Augustin Thierry, in
Macaulay, in Carlyle, in Michelet, and the books of
the great writers who have treated historical subjects
are reprinted, fifty years after the author's death, in
their original form, though they are manifestly no
longer on a level with current knowledge. It is
clear that, for many, form counts before matter in
history, and that an historical work is primarily, if
not exclusively, a work of art.1

II. It is within the last fifty years that the
scientific forms of historical exposition have been
evolved and settled, in accordance with the general
principle that the aini of history is not to please, nor
to give practical maxims of conduct, nor to arouse
the emotions, but knowledge pure and simple.

We begin by distinguishing between (i) mono-
graphs and (2) works of a general character.

1 It is a commonplace, and an error all the same, to maintain
the exact opposite of the above, namely, that the works of critical
scholars live, while the works of historians grow antiquated, so that
scholars gain a more solid reputation than historians do : " Pere
Daniel is now read no longer, and Pere Anselme is always read."
Eut the works of scholars become antiquated too, and the fact that
not all the parts of the work of Pere Anselme have yet been super-
seded (that is why he is still read), ought not to deceive us : the
great majority of the works written by scholars, like those of
researchers in the sciences proper, are provisional and doomed to
oblivion.

303

Synthetic Operations

(i) A man writes a monograph when he pro-
poses to elucidate a special point, a single fact, or
a limited body of facts, for example the whole or
a portion of the life of an individual, a single event
or a series of events between two dates lying near
together. The types of possible subjects of a mono-
graph cannot be enumerated, for the subject-matter
of history can be divided indefinitely, and in an
infinite number of ways. But all modes of division
are not equally judicious, and, though the reverse
has been maintained, there are, in history as in all
the sciences, subjects which it would be stupid to
treat in monographs, and monographs which, though
well executed, represent so much useless labour,1
Persons of moderate ability and no great mental
range, devoted to what is -called " curious " learning,
are very ready to occupy themselves with insignificant
questions;2 indeed, for the purpose of making a first
estimate of an historian's intellectual power, a fairly
good criterion may be had in the list of the mono-
graphs he has written.3 It is the gift of seeing the

1 " It is in vain that those professionally concerned try to deceive
themselves on this point ; not everything in the past is interesting.
" Supposing we were to write the Life of the Duke of Angouleme,"
says Pecuchet. "But he was an imbecile I" answers Bouvard;
"Never mind; personages of the second order often have an
enormous influence, and perhaps he was able to control the march
of events." — G. Flaubert, Bouvard et P6cuchet,-p. 157.

2 As persons of moderate ability have a tendency to prefer in-
significant subjects, there is active competition in the treatment of
such subjects. We often have occasion to note the simultaneous
appearance of several monographs on the same subject. It is not
rare for the subject to be altogether devoid of importance.

3 Interesting subjects for monographs are not always capable
of being treated : there are some which the state of the sources
puts out of the question. This is why beginners, even those

304

Exposition

important problems, and the taste for their treat-
ment, as well as the power of solving them, which,
in all the sciences, raise men to the first rank. But
let us suppose the subject has been rationally chosen.
Every monograph, in order to be useful — that is,
capable of being fully turned to account — should
conform to three rules : ( i ) in a monograph every
historical fact derived from documents should only
be presented accompanied by a reference to the
documents from which it is taken, and an estimate
of the value of these documents;1 (2) chronological
order should be followed as far as possible, because
this is the order in which we know that the facts
occurred, and by which we are guided in searching
for causes and effects ; (3) the title of the monograph
must enable its subject to be known with exacti-

who have ability, experience so much embarrassment in choosing
subjects for their first monographs, when they are not aided by
good advice or good fortune, and often lose themselves in attempt-
ing the impossible. It would be very severe, and very unjust, to
judge any one from the list of his first monographs.

1 In practice it is proper to give at the beginning a list of the
sources used in the whole of the monograph (with appropriate
bibliographical information as to the printed works, and in the
case of manuscripts, a mention of the nature of the documents
and their shelf -marks) ; besides, each special statement should be
accompanied by its proof : the exact text of the supporting docu-
ment should be quoted, if possible, so that the reader may be in a
position to verify the interpretation ; otherwise an analysis of it
should be given in a note, or, at the least, the title of the docu-
ment, with its shelf-mark, or with a precise indication of the place
where it was published. The general rule is to put the reader in a
position to know the exact reasons for which such and such con-
clusions have been adopted at each stage of the analysis.

Beginners, resembling ancient authors in this respect, naturally
do not observe all these rules. Frequently, instead of quoting the
text or the titles of documents, they refer to these by their shelf-
mark, or by the title of the general collection in which they are
printed, from which the reader can learn nothing as to the nature

305 U

Synthetic Operations

tude : we cannot protest too strongly against those
incomplete or fancy titles which so unnecessarily
complicate bibliographical searches. A fourth rule
has been laid down ; it has been said " a monograph
is useful only when it exhausts the subject " ; but it
is quite legitimate to do temporary work with docu-
ments which one has at one's disposal, even when
there is reason to believe that others exist, provided
always that precise notice is given as to what docu-
ments have been employed.

Any one who has tact will see that, in a mono-
graph, the apparatus of demonstration, while need-
ing to be complete, ought to be reduced to what
is strictly necessary. Sobriety is imperative ; all
parading of erudition which might have been spared
without inconvenience is odious.1 In history it often
happens that the best executed monographs furnish
no other result than the proof that knowledge is
impossible. It is necessary to resist the desire which
leads some to round off with subjective, ambitious,
and vague conclusions monographs which will no,t

of the text adduced. The following is another mistake of the
crudest kind, and yet of frequent occurrence : Beginners, and
persons of little experience, do not always understand why the
custom has been introduced of inserting footnotes ; at the bottom
of the pages of the books they have they see a fringe of notes ;
they think themselves bound to fringe their own books in the same
way, but their notes are adventitious and purely ornamental ; they
do not serve either to exhibit the proof or to enable the reader to
verify the statements. All these methods are inadmissible, and
should be vigorously denounced.

1 Almost all beginners have an unfortunate tendency to wander
off into superfluous digressions, to amass reflections and pieces of
information which have no relevance to the main subject ; they
would recognise, if they reflected, that the causes of this tendency
are bad taste, a kind of naive vanity, sometimes mental confusion.

.306

Exposition

bear them.1 The proper conclusion of a good mono-
graph is the balance-sheet of the results obtained by
it and the points left doubtful. A monograph made
on these principles may grow antiquated, but it will
not fall to pieces, and its author will never need to
blush for it.

(2) Works of a general character are addressed
either to students or to the general public.

A. General works intended principally for students
and specialists now appear in the form of "reper-
tories," " manuals," and " scientific histories." In a
repertory a number of verified facts belonging to a
given class are collected and arranged in an order
which makes it easy to refer to them. If the facts
thus collected have precise dates, chronological order
is adopted : thus the task has been undertaken of
compiling " Annals " of German history, in which
the summary entry of the events, arranged by
dates, is accompanied by the texts from which the
events are known, Avith accurate references to the
sources and the works of critics ; the collection of
the Jahrbiicher der deuUchen Geschichte has for its
object the elucidation, as far as is possible, of the
facts of German history, including all that is suscep-
tible of scientific discussion and proof, but omitting
all that belongs to the domain of appreciation and
general views. When the facts are badly dated, or

1 We meet with declarations like the following : " I have been
long familiar with the documents of this period and this class. I
have an impression that such and such conclusions, which I cannot
prove, are true." Of two things one : either the author can give
the reasons for his impression, and then we can judge them, or he
cannot give them, and we may assume that he has none of serious
value.

307

Synthetic Operations

are simultaneous, alphabetical arrangement must be
employed ; thus we have Dictionaries ■ dictionaries
of institutions, biographical dictionaries, historical
encyclopedias, such as the Bealencyclopcedie of Pauly-
Wissowa. These alphabetical repertories are, in
theory, just as the Jahrbilcher, collections of proved
facts ; if, in practice, the references in them are less
rigorous, if the apparatus of texts supporting the
statements is less complete, the difference is without
justification.1 Scientific manuals are also, properly
speaking, repertories, since they are collections in
which established facts are arranged in systematic
order, and are exhibited objectively, with their proofs,
and without any literary adornment. The authors
of these " manuals," of which the most numerous
and the most perfect specimens have been composed
in our days in the German universities, have no
object in view except to draw up minute inventories
of the acquisitions made by knowledge, in order that
workers may be enabled to assimilate the results of
criticism with greater ease and rapidity, and may
be furnished with starting-points for new researches.
Manuals of this kind now exist for most of the special
branches of the history of civilisation (languages,
literature, religion, law, Alterthilmer, and so on), for
the history of institutions, for the different parts of

1 This difference has a tendency to disappear. The most recent
alphabetical collections of historical facts (the Realencyclopcedie der
classischen Alterthumswissenscha/t of Pauly-Wissowa, the Diction-
naire des antiquites of Daremberg and Saglio, the Dictionary of
National Biography of Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee) are furnished
with a sufficiently ample apparatus. It is principally in biographical
dictionaries that the custom of giving no proofs tends to persist ; see
the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, &c.

308

Exposition

ecclesiastical history. It will suffice to mention the
names of Schcemann, of Marquardt and Mommsen,
of Gilbert, of Krumbacher, of Harnack, of M oiler.
These works are not marked by the dryness of the
majority of the primitive "manuals," which were
published in Germany a hundred years ago, and
which were little more than tables of subjects, with
references to the books and documents to be con-
sulted ; in the modern type the exposition and dis-
cussion are no doubt terse and compact, but yet not
abbreviated beyond a point at which they may be
tolerated, even preferred by cultivated readers. They
take away the taste for other books, as G. Paris very
well says : l " When one has feasted on these sub-
stantial pages, so full of facts, Avhich, with all their
appearance of impersonality, yet contain, and above
all suggest, so many thoughts, it is difficult to read
books, even books of distinction, in which the subject
is cut up symmetrically to fit in with a preconceived
system, is coloured by fancy, and is, so to speak, pre-
sented to us in disguise, books in which the author
continually comes between us and the spectacle
which he claims to make intelligible to us, but which
he never allows us to see." The great historical
" manuals," uniform with the treatises and manuals
of the other sciences (with the added complication
of authorities and proofs), ought to be, and are, con-
tinually improved, emended, corrected, brought up
to date : they are, by definition, works of science and
not of art.

The earliest repertories and the earliest scientific
" manuals " were composed by isolated individuals.

1 Revue Critique, 1874, i. p. 327.

3°9

Synthetic Operations

But it was soon recognised that a single man cannot
correctly arrange, or have the proper mastery over a
vast collection of facts. The task has been divided.
Repertories are executed, in our days, by collaborators
in association (who are sometimes of different nation-
alities and write in different languages). The great
manuals (of I. von Midler, of G. Grober, of H. Paul,
and others) are collections of special treatises each
written by a specialist. The principle of collabora-
tion is excellent, but on condition (i) that the col-
lective work is of a nature to be resolved into great
independent, though co-ordinated, monographs; (2)
that the section entrusted to each collaborator has a
certain extent ; if the number of collaborators is too
great and the part of each too limited, the liberty
and the responsibility of each are diminished or
disappear.

Histories, intended to give a narrative of events
which happened but once, and to state the general
facts which dominate the whole course of special
evolutions, still have a reason for existence, even
after the multiplication of methodical manuals. But
scientific methods of exposition have been introduced
into them, as into monographs and manuals, and
that by imitation. The reform has consisted, in
every case, in the renunciation of literary ornaments
and of statements without proof. Grote produced
the first model of a " history " thus defined. At the
same time certain forms which once had a vogue
have now fallen into disuse : this is the case with
the " Universal Histories " with continuous narrative,
which were so much liked, for different reasons, in
the Middle Ages and in the eighteenth century ; in

310

Exposition

the present century Schlosser and Weber in Ger-
many, Cantii in Italy, have produced the last speci-
mens of them. This type has been abandoned for
historical reasons, because we have ceased to regard
humanity as a whole, bound together by a single
evolution; and for practical reasons, because we
have recognised the impossibility of collecting so
overwhelming a mass of facts in a single work. The
Universal Histories which are still published in col-
laboration (the Oncken collection is the best type
of them), are, like the great manuals, composed of
independent sections, each treated by a different
author; they are publishers' combinations. His-
torians have in our days been led to adopt the
division by states (national histories) and by epochs.1
B. There is in theory no reason why historical
works intended principally for the public should not
be conceived in the same spirit as works designed
for students and specialists, nor why they should
not be composed in the same manner, apart from
simplifications and omissions which readily suggest
themselves. And, in fact, there are in existence
succinct, substantial, and readable summaries, in which
no statement is advanced which is not tacitly sup-
ported by solid references, in which the acquisitions

1 The custom of appending to " histories," that is to narratives
of political events, summaries of the results obtained by the special
historians of art, literature, &c, still persists. A "History of
France " would not be considered complete if it did not contain
chapters on the history of art, literature, manners, &c, in France.
However, it is not the summary account of special evolutions, de-
scribed at second hand from the works of specialists, which is in its
proper place in a scientific " History " ; it is the study of those
general facts which have dominated the special evolutions in their
entirety.

3"

Synthetic Opeeations

of science are precisely stated, judiciously explained,
their significance and value clearly brought out. The
French, thanks to their natural gifts of tact, dexterity,
and accuracy of mind, excel, as a rule, in this depart-
ment. There have been published in our country
review-articles and works of higher popularisation
in which the results of a number of original works
have been cleverly condensed, in a way that has won
the admiration of the very -specialists who, by their
heavy monographs, have rendered these works pos-
sible. Nothing, however, is more dangerous than
popularisation. As a matter of fact, most works of
popularisation do not conform to the modern ideal
of historical exposition ; we frequently find in them
survivals of the ancient ideal, that of antiquity, the
Benaissance, and the romantic school.

The explanation is easy. The defects of the
historical works designed for the general public —
defects which are sometimes enormous, and have,
with many able minds, discredited popular works
as a class — are the consequences of the insufficient
preparation or of the inferior literary education of
the " popularisers."

A populariser is excused from original research ;
but he ought to know everything of importance
that has been published on his subject, he ought
to be up to date, and to have thought out for
himself the conclusions reached by the specialists.
.If he has not personally made a special study of
the subject he proposes to treat, he must obviously
read it up, and the task is long. For the pro-
fessional populariser there is a strong temptation
to study superficially a few recent monographs, to

312

Exposition

hastily string together or combine extracts from
them, and, in order to render this medley more
attractive, to deck it out, as far as is possible, with
" general ideas " and external graces. The tempta-
tion is all the stronger from the circumstance that
most specialists take no interest in works of popu-
larisation, that these works are, in general, lucrative,
and that the public at large is not in a position
to distinguish clearly between honest and sham
popularisation. In short, there are some, absurd
as it may seem, who do not hesitate to summarise
for others what they have not taken the trouble
to learn for themselves, and to teach that of
which they are ignorant. Hence, in most works
of historical popularisation, there inevitably appear
blemishes of every kind, which the well-informed
always note with pleasure, but with a pleasure in
which there is some touch of bitterness, because
they alone can see these faults: unacknowledged
borrowings, inexact references, mutilated names
and texts, second-hand quotations, worthless hypo-
theses, imprudent assertions, puerile generalisa-
tions, and, in the enunciation of the most false
or the most debatable opinions, an air of tranquil
anthority.1

On the other hand, men whose information is all
that could be desired, whose monographs intended

1 It is hard to imagine what it is possible for the most interest-
ing and best established results of modern criticism to become, in
the hands of negligent and unskilful popularisers. The persons
who know most of these possibilities are those who have occasion
to read the improvised "compositions" of candidates in history
examinations : the ordinary defects of inferior popularisation are
here pushed sometimes to an absurd length.

3X3

Synthetic Operations

for specialists are full of merit, sometimes show
themselves capable, when they write for the public,
of grave offences against scientific method. The
Germans are habitual offenders: consider Mommsen,
Droysen, Curtius, and Lamprecht. The reason is
that these authors, when they address the public,
wish to produce an effect upon it. Their desire to
make a strong impression leads them to a certain
relaxation of scientific rigour, and to the old re-
jected habits of ancient historiography. These men,
scrupulous and minute as they are when they are
engaged in establishing details, abandon themselves,
in their exposition of general questions, to their
natural impulses, like the common run of men.
They take sides, they censure, they extol ; they
colour, they embellish ; they allow themselves to
be influenced by personal, patriotic, moral, or meta-
physical considerations. And, over and above all this,
they apply themselves, with their several degrees
of talent, to the task of producing works of art ; in
this endeavour those who have no talent make
themselves ridiculous, and the talent of those who
have any is spoilt by their preoccupation with the
effect they wish to produce.

Not, let it be well understood, that " form " is
of no importance, or that, provided he makes him-
self intelligible, the historian has a right to employ
incorrect, vulgar, slovenly, or clumsy language. A
contempt for rhetoric, for paste diamonds and paper
flowers, does not exclude a taste for a pure and
strong, a terse and pregnant style. Fustel de Cou-
langes was a good writer, although throughout his
life he recommended and practised the avoidance of

3H

Exposition

metaphor. On the contrary we see no harm in re-
peating1 that the historian, considering the extreme
complexity of the phenomena he undertakes to
describe, is under an obligation not to write badly.
But he should write consistently well, and never
bedeck himself with finery.

1 Cf. supra, p. 266.

31s

CONCLUSION

I. History is only the utilisation of documents.
But it is a matter of chance whether documents
are preserved or lost. Hence the predominant part
played by chance in the formation of history.

The quantity of documents in existence, if not of
known documents, is given ; time, in spite of all the
precautions which are taken nowadays, is continually
diminishing it ; it will never increase. History has
at its disposal a limited stock of documents ; this
very circumstance limits the possible progress of
historical science. When all the documents are
known, and have gone through the operations which
fit them for use, the work of critical scholarship will
be finished. In the case of some ancient periods,
for which documents are rare, we can now see that
in a generation or two it will be time to stop. His-
torians will then be obliged to take refuge more and
more in modern periods. Thus history will not
foil the dream which, in the nineteenth century,
inspired the romantic school with so much enthu-
siasm for the study of history : it will not penetrate
the mystery of the origin of societies ; and, for want
of documents, the beginnings of the evolution of
humanity will always remain obscure.

The historian does not collect by his own obser-
316

Conclusion

vation the materials necessary for history as is done
in the other sciences : he works on facts the know-
ledge of which has been transmitted by former
observers. In history knowledge is not obtained,
as in the other sciences, by direct methods, it is
indirect. History is not, as has been said, a science
of observation, but a science of reasoning.

In order to use facts which have been observed
under unknown conditions, it is necessary go apply
criticism to them, and criticism consists in a series
of reasonings by analogy. The facts as furnished
by criticism are isolated and scattered ; in order
to organise them into a structure it is necessary to
imagine and group them in accordance with their
resemblances to facts of the present day, an opera-
tion which also depends on the use of analogies.
This necessity compels history to use an exceptional
method. In order to frame its arguments from
analogy, it must always combine the knowledge of
the particular conditions under which the facts of
the past occurred with an understanding of the
general conditions under which the facts of humanity
occur. Its method is to draw up special tables of
the facts of an epoch in the past, and to apply to
them sets of questions founded on the study of the
present.

The operations which must necessarily be per-
formed in order to pass from the inspection of docu-
ments to the knowledge of the facts and evolutions
of the past are very numerous. Hence the necessity
of the division and organisation of labour in history.
It is requisite, on the one hand, that those specialists
who occupy themselves with the search for docu-

3J7

Conclusion

ments, their restoration and preliminary classification,
should co-ordinate their efforts, in order that the
preparatory work of critical scholarship may be
finished as soon as possible, under the best conditions
as to accuracy and economy of labour. On the other
hand, authors of partial syntheses (monographs) de-
signed to serve as materials for more comprehensive
syntheses ought to agree among themselves to work
on a common method, in order that the results of
each may be used by the others without preliminary
investigations. Lastly, workers of experience should
be found to renounce personal research and devote
their whole time to the study of these partial syn-
theses, in order to combine them scientifically in
comprehensive works of historical construction. And
if the result of these labours were to bring out clear
and certain conclusions as to the nature and the
causes of social evolution, a truly scientific "philo-
sophy of history " would have been created, which
historians might acknowledge as legitimately crowning
historical science.

Conceivably a day may come when, thanks to the
organisation of labour, all existing documents will
have been discovered, emended, arranged, and all the
facts established of which the traces have not been
destroyed. When that day comes, history will be
established, but it will not be- fixed : it will continue
to be gradually modified in proportion as the direct
study of existing societies becomes more scientific
and permits a better understanding of social pheno-
mena and their evolution ; for the new ideas which
will doubtless be acquired on the nature, the causes,
and the relative importance of social facts will con-

318

Conclusion

tinue to transform the ideas which will be formed of
the societies and events of the past.1

II. It is an obsolete illusion to suppose that
history supplies information of practical utility in
the conduct of life (Historia magistra vitce), lessons
directly profitable to individuals and peoples; the
conditions under which human actions are per-
formed are rarely sufficiently similar at- two different
moments for the " lessons of history " to be directly
applicable. But it is an error to say, by way of
reaction, that " the distinguishing feature of history is
to be good for nothing." 2 It has an indirect utility.

History enables us to understand the present in
so far as it explains the origin of the existing state
of things. Here we must admit that history does
not offer an equal interest through the whole extent
of time which it covers ; there are remote genera-

1 We have spoken above of the element of subjectivity which it
is impossible to eliminate from historical construction, and which
has been misinterpreted to the extent of denying history the
character of a science : this element of subjectivity which troubled
Pe"cuchet (G. Flaubert, Bouvard et Pecuchet, p. 157) and Sylvestre
Bonnard (A. France, Le crime de Silvestre Bonnard, p. 310), and
which causes Faust to say :

" Die Zeiten der Vergangenheit
Sind uns ein Buch mit sieben Siegeln.
Was ihr den Geist der Zeiten heisst,
Das ist im Grand der Herren eigner Geist,
In dem die Zeiten sich bespiegeln."

["Past times are to us a book with seven seals. What you call the
spirit of the times is at bottom your own spirit, in which the times
are mirrored."— Goethe, Faust, i. 3.]

2 A saying attributed to a "Sorbonne professor" by M. de la
Blanchere {Revue Critique, 1895, i. p. 176). Others have declaimed
on the theme that the knowledge of history is mischievous and
paralyses. See F. Nietzsche, Unzcitgemasse Betrachtungen, II. Nut-
zen und Nachtkeil der Historiefilr das Leben, Leipzig, 1874, 8vo.

319

Conclusion

tions whose traces are no longer visible in the world
as it now is; for the purpose of explaining the
political constitution of contemporary England, for
example, the study of the Anglo-Saxon witangemot
is without value, that of the events of the eigh-
teenth and nineteenth centuries is all-important.
The evolution of the civilised societies has within
the last hundred years been accelerated to such a
degree that, for the understanding of their present
form, the history of these hundred years is more
important than that of the ten preceding centuries.
As an explanation of the present, history would
almost reduce to the study of the contemporary
period.

History is also indispensable for the completion
of the political and social sciences, which are still in
process of formation ; for the direct observation of
social phenomena (in a state of rest) is not a suffi-
cient foundation for these sciences — there must be
added a study of the development of these pheno-
mena in time, that is, their history.1 This is why
all the sciences which deal with man (linguistic, law,
science of religions, political economy, and so on)
have in this century assumed the form of historical
sciences.

But the chief merit of history is that of being an
instrument of intellectual culture ; it is so in several

1 History and the social sciences are mutually dependent on each
other ; they progress in parallel lines by a continual interchange of
services. The social sciences furnish a knowledge of the present,
required by history for the purpose of making representations of
the facts and reasoning from documents. History gives the infor-
mation about evolutions which is necessary in order to understand
the present.

320

Conclusion

ways. Firstly, the practice of the historical method
of investigation, of which the principles have been
sketched in the present volume, is very hygienic for
the mind, which it cures of credulity. Secondly,
history, by exhibiting to us a great number of differ-
ing societies, prepares us to understand and tolerate
a variety of usages ; by showing us that societies
have often been transformed, it familiarises us with
variation in social forms, and cures us of a morbid
dread of change. Lastly, the contemplation of past
evolutions, which enables us to understand how the
transformations of humanity are brought about by
changes of habits and the renewal of generations,
saves us from the temptation of applying biological
analogies (selection, struggle for existence, inherited
habits, and so on) to the explanation of social evolu-
tion, which is not produced by the operation of the
same causes as animal evolution.

321

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

THE SECONDARY TEACHING OF HISTORY
IN FRANCE

I. The teaching of history is a recent addition to secondary
education. Formerly history was taught to the sons of
kings and great persons, in order to give them a preparation
in the art of governing, according to the ancient tradition,
but it was a sacred science reserved for the future rulers
of states, a science for princes, not for subjects. The
secondary schools which have been organised since the
sixteenth century, ecclesiastical or secular, Catholic or Pro-
testant, did not admit history into their plan of study,
or only admitted it as an appendage to the study of the
ancient languages. This was the tradition of the Jesuits in
France ; it was adopted by the University of Napoleon.

History was only introduced into secondary education in
the nineteenth century, under the pressure of public opinion ;
and although it has been allotted more space in France than
in England, or even in Germany, it has continued to be a
subsidiary subject, not taught in a special class (as philosophy
is), nor always by a special professor, and counting for very
little in examinations.

Historical instruction has for a long time felt the effects
of the maimer in which it was introduced. The subject
was imposed by the authorities on teachers trained exclu-
sively in the study of literature, and could find no suitable
place in a system of classical education based on the study
of forms, and indifferent to the knowledge of social pheno-

325

Appendix I

mena. History was taught because it was prescribed by the
programme; but this programme, the sole motive aud guide
of the instruction, was always an accident, and varied with
the preferences, or even the personal studies of those who
framed it. History formed part of the social conventions ;
there are, it was said, names and facts " of which it is not
permissible to be ignorant " ; but the things of which ignor-
ance was not permitted varied greatly, from the names of
the Merovingian kings and the battles of the Seven Years'
War to the Salic Law and the work of Saint Vincent de Paul.
The improvised staffs which, in order to carry out the
programme, had to furnish impromptu instruction in history,
had no clear idea either of the reasons for such instruction,
or of its place in general education, or of the technical
methods necessary for giving it. With this lack of tradi-
tion, of pedagogic preparation, and even of mechanical aids,
the professor of history found himself carried back to the
ages before printing, when the teacher had to supply the
pupil with all the facts which formed the subject-matter of
instruction, and he adopted the mediaeval procedure. Armed
with a note-book in which he had written down the list of
facts to be taught, he read it out to the pupils, sometimes
making a pretence of extemporising; this was the "lesson,"
the corner-stone of historical instruction. The whole series
of lessons, determined by the programme, formed the
"course." The pupil was expected to write as he listened
(this was called " taking notes ") and to compose a written
account of what he had heard (this was the redaction).
But as the pupils were not taught how to take notes, nearly
all of them were content to write very rapidly, from the
professor's dictation, a rough draft, which they copied out
at home in the form of a redaction, without any endeavour
to grasp the meaning either of what they heard or what
they transcribed. To this mechanical labour the most
zealous added extracts copied from books, generally with
just as little reflection.

326

Appendix I

In order to get the facts judged essential into the pupils'
heads, the professor used to make a very short version of
the lesson, the "summary" or "abstract," which he dictated
openly, and caused to be learnt by heart. Thus of the two
written exercises which occupied nearly the whole time of
the class, one (the summary) was an overt dictation, the
other (the redaction) an unavowed dictation.

The only means adopted to check the pupils' work was to
make them repeat the summary word for word, and to ques-
tion them on the redaction, that is to make them repeat
approximately the words of the professor. Of the two
oral exercises one was an overt, the other an unavowed
repetition.

It is true the pupil was given a book, the Precis d'histoire,1
but this book had the same form as the professor's course,
and instead of serving as a basis for the oral instruction,
merely duplicated it, and, as a rule, duplicated it badly, for
it was not' intelligible to the pupil. The authors of these
text-books,2 adopting the traditional methods of "abridg-
ments," endeavoured to accumulate the greatest possible
number of facts by omitting all their characteristic details
and summarising them in the most general, and therefore
vague, expressions. In the elementary books nothing was
left but a residue of proper names and dates connected by
formulae of a uniform type ; history appeared as a series of
wars, treaties, reforms, revolutions, which only differed in
the names of peoples, sovereigns, fields of battle, and in
the figures giving the years.3

Such, down to the end of the Second Empire, was histori-

1 The same institution has been adopted in German-speaking coun-
tries under the name of Leitfaden (guiding-thread), and in English-
speaking countries under the name of Text-book.

2 We must make an exception of Michelet's Pr4cis de Vhistoire
modcrne, and do Duruy the justice to acknowledge that in his school-
books, even in the first editions, he has endeavoured, often successfully,
to make his narratives both interesting and instructive.

3 For a criticism of this method, see above, p. 265.

327

Appendix I

cal instruction in all French institutions, both secular and
ecclesiastical — with a few exceptions, whose merit is measured
by their rarity, for in those days a professor of history
needed a more than common share of energy and initiative
to rise above the routine of redaction and summary.

IT. In recent times the general movement of educational
reform, which began in the Department and the Faculties,
has at last extended to secondary instruction. The professors
of history have been emancipated from the jealous super-
vision which weighed on their teaching under the govern-
ment of the Empire, and have taken the opportunity to
make trial of new methods. A system of historical peda-
gogy has been devised. It has been revealed with the
approbation of the Department in the discussions of the
society for the study of questions of secondary education, in
the Revue de Venseignement secondaire, and in the Revue
universitaire. It has received official sanction in the Instruc-
tions appended to the programme of 1890; the report on
history, the work of M. Lavisse, has become the charter
which protects the professors who favour reform in their
struggle against tradition.1

Historical instruction will no doubt issue from this crisis
of renovation organised and provided with a rational peda-
gogic and technical system, such as is possessed by the older
branches of instruction in languages, literature, and philo-
sophy. But it is only to be expected that the reform should
be much slower than in the case of the higher instruction.
The personnel is much more numerous, and takes longer to
train or to renew; the pupils are less zealous and less in-
telligent ; the routine of the parents opposes to the new
methods a force of inertia which is unknown to the Faculties;
and the Baccalaureate, that general obstacle to all reform, is

1 The most complete, and probably the most accurate, account of
the state of the secondary teaching of history after the reforms has-
been given by a Spaniard, It. Altaniira, La IvuseTianza de la historia,
2nd edition, Madrid, 1895, 8vo.

328

Appendix I

particularly mischievous in its effect on historical instruction,
which it reduces to a set of questions and answers.

III. It is now possible, however, to indicate what is the
direction in which historical instruction is likely to develop
in France-1 and the questions which will need to be solved
for the purpose of introducing a rational technical system.
Here we shall endeavour to formulate these questions in a
methodical table.

(i) General Organisation. — What object should historical
instruction aim at? What services can it render to the
culture of the pupil 1 What influence can it have upon his
conduct ? What facts ought it to enable him to understand ?
And, consequently, what principles ought to guide the
choice of subjects and methods ? Ought the instruction to
be spread over the whole duration of the classes, or should
it be concentrated in a special class ? Should it be given in
one-hour or two-hour classes ? Should history be distributed
into several cycles, as in Germany, so as to cause the pupil
to return several times to the same subject at different
periods of his studies? Or should it be expounded in a
single continuous course, beginning with the commencement
of study, as in France ? Should the professor give a com-
plete course, or should he select a few questions and leave
the pupil to study the others by himself ? Should he ex-
pound the facts orally, or should he require the pupils to
learn them in the first instance from a book, so as to make
the course a series of explanations ?

(2) Choice of Subjects. — What proportion should be ob-
served between home and foreign history ? between ancient
and contemporary history? between the special branches of
history (art, religion, customs, economics) and general his-

1 We are here treating only of France. But, in order to dispel an
illusion of the French public, we may remark that historical pedagogy
is still less advanced in English-speaking countries, where the methods
used are still mechanical, and even in German-speaking countries,
where it is hampered by the conception of patriotic teaching.

329

Appendix I

tory? between institutions or usages, and events 1 between
the evolution of material usages, intellectual history, social
life, political life ? between the study of particular incidents,
of biography, of dramatic episodes, and the study of the
interconnection of events and general evolutions? What
place should be assigned to proper names and dates ? Should
we profit by the opportunities afforded by legends to arouse
the critical spirit ? or should we avoid legends ?

(3) Order. — In what order should the subjects be at-
tacked 1 Should instruction begin with the most ancient
periods and the countries with the most ancient civilisa-
tions in order to follow chronological order and the order
of evolution? or should it begin with the periods and the
countries which are nearest to us so as to proceed from the
better known to the less known ? In the exposition of each
period, should the chronological, geographical, or logical
order be followed ? Should the teacher begin by describing
conditions or by narrating events?

(4) Methods of Instruction. — Should the pupil be given
general formulae first or particular images ? Should the
professor state the formulae himself or require the pupil to
search for them ? Should formulae be learnt by heart ? In
what cases ? How are images of historical facts to be pro-
duced in the pupils' minds ? What use is to be made of
engravings ? of reproductions and restorations ? of imaginary
scenes ? What use is to be made of narratives and descrip-
tions? of authors' texts? of historical novels? To what
extent ought words and formulae to be quoted? How are facts
to be localised ? What use is to be made of chronological
tables? of synchronical tables? of geographical sketches?
of statistical and graphic tables ? What is the way to make
comprehensible the character of events and customs? the
motives of actions? the conditions of customs? How are
the episodes of an event to be chosen? and the examples
of a custom ? How is the interconnection of facts and the
process of evolution to be made intelligible ? What use is to

330

Appendix I

be made of comparison ? What style of language is to be
employed? To what extent should concrete, abstract, and
technical terms be used ? How is it to be verified that the
pupil has understood the terms and assimilated the facts?
Can exercises be organised in which the pupil may do
original work on the facts? What instruments of study
should the pupil have ? How should school-books be com-
piled, with a view to giving the pupil practice in original
work ?

For the purpose of stating and justifying the solutions of
all these problems, a special treatise would not be too much. x
Here we shall merely indicate the general principles on
which a tolerable agreement seems to have been now reached
in France.

We no longer go to history for lessons in morals, nor for
good examples of conduct, nor yet for dramatic or picturesque
scenes. We understand that for all these purposes legend
would be preferable to history, for it presents a chain of
causes and effects more in accordance with our ideas of
justice, more perfect and heroic characters, finer and more
affecting scenes. 'Nov do we seek to use history, as is done
in Germany, for the purpose of promoting patriotism and
loyalty; we feel that it would be illogical for different per-
sons to draw opposite conclusions from the same science
according to their country or party ; it would be an invitation
to every people to mutilate, if not to alter, history in the
direction of its preferences. We understand that the value
of every science consists in its being true, and we ask from
history truth and nothing more.2

1 I have endeavoured, in a course of lectures at the Sorbonne, to do
a part of this work. — [Ch. S.]

2 Let it be noted, however, that to the question put to the candidates
for the modern Baccalaureate in July 1897, " What purpose is served
by the teaching of history ? " eighty per cent, of the candidates
answered, in effect, either because they believed it, or because they
thought it would please, "To promote patriotism."— [0. V. L.]

33*

Appendix I

The function of history in education is perhaps not yet
clearly apparent to all those who teach it. But all those
who reflect are agreed to regard it as being principally an
instrument of social culture. The study of the societies
of the past causes the pupil to understand, by the help of
actual instances, what a society is ; it familiarises him with
the principal social phenomena and the different species of
usages, their variety and their resemblances. The study of
events and evolutions familiarises him with the idea of the
continual transformation which human affairs undergo, it
secures him against an unreasoning dread of social changes ;
it rectifies his notion of progress. All these acquisitions
render the pupil fitter for public life ; history thus appears
as an indispensable branch of instruction in a democratic
society.

The guiding principle of historical pedagogy will therefore
be to seek for those subjects and those methods which are
best calculated to exhibit social phenomena and give an
understanding of their evolution. Before admitting a fact
into the plan of instruction, it should be asked first of all
what educational influence it can exercise ; secondly, whether
there are adequate means of bringing the pupil to see and
understand it. Every fact should be discarded which is
instructive only in a low degree, or which is too complicated
to be understood, or in regard to which we do not possess
details enough to make it intelligible.

IY. To make rational instruction a reality it is not enough
to develop a theory of historical pedagogy. It is necessary
to renew the material aids and the methods.

History necessarily involves the knowledge of a great
number of facts. The professor of history, with no resources
but his voice, a blackboard, and abridgments which are
little better than chronological tables, is in much the same
situation as a professor of Latin without texts or dictionary.
The pupil in history needs a repertory of historical facts
as the Latin pupil needs a repertory of Latin words; he

332

Appendix I

needs collections of facts, and the school text-books are
mostly collections of words.

There are two vehicles of facts, engravings and books.
Engravings exhibit material objects and external aspects,
they are useful principally for the study of material civilisa-
tion. It is some time since the attempt was first made in
Germany to put in the hands of the pupil a collection of
engravings arranged for the purposes of historical instruc-
tion. The same need has, in France, produced the Album
historique, which is published under the direction of M.
Lavisse.

The book is the chief instrument. It ought to contain
all the characteristic features necessary for forming mental
representations of the events, the motives, the habits, the
institutions studied ; it will consist principally in narratives
and descriptions, to which characteristic sayings and formulae
may be appended. For a long time it was endeavoured to
construct those books out of extracts selected from ancient
authors; they were compiled in the form of collections of
texts.1 Experience seems to indicate that this method must
be abandoned ; it has a scientific appearance, it is true, but
is not intelligible to children. It is better to address pupils
in contemporary language. It is in this spirit that, pur-
suant to the Instructions of 1890,2 collections of Historical
Headings have been compiled, of which the most important
has been published by the firm of Hachette.

The pupils' methods of work still bear witness to the late
introduction of historical teaching. In most historical classes
methods still prevail which only Exercise the pupils' recep-
tivity : the course of lectures, the summary, reading, ques-
tioning, the redaction, the reproduction of maps. It is as

1 This is what has been produced in Germany under the name of
Quellenbuch.

2 The same pedagogic theory will be found in the preface to my
Histoire narrative et descriptive des anciens peuples de I 'Orient, Supple-
ment for the use of professors, Paris, 1890, 8vo. — [Ch. S.]

333

Appendix I

if a Latin pupil were to confine himself to repeating gram-
mar-lessons and extracts from authors, without ever doing
translation or composition.

In order that the teaching may make an adequate im-
pression, it is necessary, if not to discard all these passive
methods, at least to supplement them "by exercises which
call out the activity of the pupil. Some such exercises
have already been experimented with, and others might
be devised.1 The pupil may be set to analyse engravings,
narratives, and descriptions in such a way as to bring out
the character of the facts : the short written or oral analysis
will guarantee that he has seen and understood, it will be
an opportunity to inculcate the habit of using only precise
terms. Or the pupil may be asked to furnish a drawing,
a geographical sketch, a synchronical table. He may be
required to draw up tables of comparison between different
societies, and tables showing the interconnection of facts.

A book is needed to supply the pupil with the materials
for these exercises. Thus the reform of methods is connected
with the reform of the instruments of work. Both reforms
will progress according as the professors and the public
perceive more clearly the part played by historical instruction
in social education.

1 I have treated this question in the Revue universitairc, 1896, vol. i.
— [Ch. S.]

33+

APPENDIX II

THE HIGHER TEACHING OF HISTORY
IN FRANCE

The higher teaching of history has been in a great measure
transformed, in our country, within the last thirty years.
The process has been gradual, as it ought to have been, and
has consisted in a succession of slight modifications. But
although a rational continuity has been observed in the steps
taken, the great number of these steps has not failed, in
these last days, to astonish, and even to offend, the public.
Public opinion, to -which appeal has been made in favour
of reforms, has been somewhat surprised by being appealed
to so often, and perhaps it is not superfluous to indicate here,
once more, the general significance and the inner logic of the
movement which we are witnessing.

I. Before the last years of the Second Empire, the higher
teaching of the historical sciences was organised in France
on no coherent system.1

There were chairs of history in different institutions, of
different types : at the College de France, in the Faculties
of Letters, and in the "special schools," such as the Ecole
normale supeneure and the ffcole des chartes.

The College de France was a relic of the institutions of
the ancien regime. It was founded in the sixteenth century

1 On the organisation of higher education in France at this epoch
and on the first reforms, see the excellent work of M. L. Liard.
V Enseignement supdrieur en France, Paris, 1888-94, 2 vols. 8vo.

335

Appendix II

in opposition to the scholastic Sorbonne, to be a refuge for
the new sciences, and had the glorious privilege of represent-
ing historically the higher speculative studies, the spirit of
free inquiry, and the interests of pure science. Unfortu-
nately, in the domain of the historical sciences, the College
de France had allowed its traditions to be obliterated up to
a certain point. The great men who taught history in this
illustrious institution (J. Michelet, for example), were not
technical experts, nor even men of learning, in the proper
sense of the word. The audiences which they swayed by
their eloquence were not composed of students of history.

The Faculties of Letters formed part of a system estab-
lished by the Napoleonic legislator. This legislator, in
creating the Faculties, by no means entertained the design
of encouraging scientific research. He had no great love for
science. The Faculties of Law, of Medicine, and so on, were
intended by him to be professional schools supplying society
with the lawyers, physicians, and so on, which it needs.
But three of the five Faculties were unable, from the be-
ginning, to perform the part allotted them, while the other
two, Law and Medicine, successfully performed theirs. The
Faculties of Catholic Theology did not train the priests
needed by society, because the State consented to the edu-
cation of the priests being conducted in the diocesan semi-
naries. The Faculties of Sciences and of Letters did not
train the professors for secondary education, the engineers,
and so on, needed by society, because they were here met
by the triumphant competition of "special schools" previ-
ously instituted : the Ecole normale, the Ecole polytechnique.
The Faculties of Catholic Theology, of Sciences, and of
Letters were therefore obliged to justify their existence by
other modes of activity. In particular, the professors of
history in the Faculties of Letters could not undertake the
instruction of the young men who were destined to teach
history in the lycees. Deprived of these special pupils, they
found themselves in a situation analogous to that of those

336

Appendix II

charged with historical instruction at the College de France.
They too were not, as a rule, technical experts. For half a
century they carried on the work of higher popularisation
in lectures delivered to large audiences of leisured persons
(since much abused), who were attracted by the force, the
elegance, and the pleasing style of their diction.

The function of training the future teachers for secondary
education was reserved for the Ecole normale sup^rieure.
Now at this epoch it was an admitted principle that to be
a good secondary teacher it is necessary for a man to know,
and sufficient to know perfectly, the subject he is charged
to teach. The one is certainly necessary, but the other- is
not sufficient : knowledge of a different, of a higher, order
is no less indispensable than the regular " scholastic " equip-
ment. At the icole there was never any question of such
higher knowledge, but, in accordance with the prevailing
theory, preparation was made for secondary teaching simply
by imparting it. However, as the Ecole normale has always
been excellently recruited, the system in vogue has not pre-
vented it from numbering among its former pupils men of
the first order, not only as professors, thinkers, or writers,
but even as critical scholars. But it must be recognised
that they made their way for themselves, in spite of the
system, not thanks to it, after, not during, their pupilage,
and principally when they had the advantage, during a stay
at the French School at Athens, of the wholesome contact
with documents which they had not enjoyed at the Rue
d'Ulm. " Does it not seem strange," it has been said, " that
so many generations of professors should have been turned
out by the £cole normale incapable of utilising documents ?
. '. . Formerly, in short, students of history, on leaving the
Ecole, were not prepared either to teach history, which they
had learned in a great hurry, or to investigate difficult
questions." 1

As for the Ecole des chartes, which was founded under
1 E. Lavisae, Questions d'enseignement national, p. 12.

337 y

Appendix II

the Restoration, it was, from a certain point of view, a
special school like the others, designed in theory to train
those useful functionaries, archivists and librarians. But
professional instruction was early reduced to a strict mini-
mum, and the Ecole des chartes was organised on a very
original plan, with a view to provide a rational and complete
apprenticeship for the young men who proposed to study
mediaeval French history. The pupils of the Ecole des
chartes did not follow any course of "mediaeval history,"
but they learnt all that is necessary for doing work on the
solution of the still open questions of mediseval history.
Here alone, in virtue of an accidental anomaly, the subjects
which are preliminary and auxiliary to historical research
were systematically taught. We have already had occasion
to note the effects of this circumstance. l

This was the state of affairs when, towards the end of the
Second Empire, a vigorous reform movement set in. Some
young Frenchmen had visited Germany ; they had been struck
by the superiority of the German university system over the
Napoleonic system of Faculties and special schools. Cer-
tainly France, with its defective organisation, had produced
many men and many works, but it now began to be held
that "in all kinds of enterprises the least possible part
should be left to chance," and that " when an institution
proposes to train professors of history and historians, it
ought to supply them with the means of becoming what
it intends them to be."

M. V. Duruy, minister of Public Education, supported
the partisans of a renaissance of the higher studies. But he
did not think it practicable to interfere, for the purpose either
of remodelling, of fusing, or of suppressing them, with the
existing institutions, — the College de France, the Faculties
of Letters, the Ecole normale superieure, the Ecole des
chartes, all of which were consecrated by the services they
had rendered, and by the lustre they received from the

1 Cf. supra, p. 55.

338

Appendix II

eminent men who had been, or were, connected with them.
He changed nothing, he added. He crowned the somewhat
heterogeneous edifice of existing institutions by the creation
of an "Ecole pratique des hautes etudes," which was estab-
lished at the Sorbonne in 1868.

The Ecole pratique des hautes etudes (historical and
philological section) was intended by those who founded it
to prepare young men for research of a scientific character.
It was not meant to be subservient to the interests of the
professions, and there was to be no popularisation. Students
were not to go there to learn the results obtained by science,
but, for the same purpose which takes the chemical student
to the laboratory, to be initiated into the technical methods
by which new results can be obtained. Thus the spirit of
the new institution was not without some analogy to that
of the primitive tradition of the College de France. It was
endeavoured to do there, for all the branches of universal
history and philology, what had long been done at the
Ecole des chartes for the limited domain of French mediaeval
history.

II. As long as the Faculties of Letters were satisfied to
be as they were (that is, without students), and as long as
their ambition did not go beyond their traditional functions
(the holding of public lectures, the conferring of degrees),
the organisation of the higher teaching of the historical
sciences in France remained in the condition which we have
described. When the Faculties of Letters began to seek
a new justification for their existence and new functions,
changes became inevitable.

This is not the place to explain why and how the
Faculties of Letters were led to desire to work more
actively, or rather in other ways than in the past, for the
promotion of the historical sciences. M. V. Duruy, in
inaugurating the Ecole des hautes etudes at the Sorbonne,
had declared that this young and vigorous plant would
thrust asunder the old stones ; and, without a doubt, the

339

Appendix II

spectacle of the fruitful activity of the Ecole des hautes
etudes has contributed not a little to awaken the conscience
of the Faculties. On the other hand the liberality of the
public authorities, which have increased the personnel of the
Faculties, which have built palaces for them, and liberally
endowed them with the materials required by their work,
has imposed new duties on these privileged institutions.

It is about twenty-five years since the Faculties of Letters
began to transform themselves, and during this period their
progressive transformation has occasioned changes in the
whole fabric of the higher teaching of historical science in
France, which up to that time had remained unshaken, even
by the ingenious addition of 1868.

III. The first care of the Faculties was to provide them-
selves with students. This was not, to be sure, the main
difficulty, for the Ecole normale superieure (in which twenty
pupils are admitted every year, chosen from among hundreds
of candidates) was no longer sufficient for the recruiting of
the now numerous body of professors engaged in secondary
education. Many young men who had been candidates
(along with the pupils of the Ecole normale superieure)
for the degrees which give access to the scholastic profes-
sion, were thrown on their own resources. Here was an
assured supply of students. At the same time the military
laws, by attaching much-prized immunities to the title of
licencie es lettres, were calculated to attract to the Faculties,
if they prepared students for the licentiate, a large and very
interesting clas° of young men. Lastly, the foreigners (so
numerous at the Ecole des hautes etudes), who come to
France to complete their scientific education, and who up
to that time were surprised to have no opportunity of pro-
fiting by the Faculties, were sure to go to them as soon as
they found there something analogous to what they had
been accustomed to find in the German universities, and the
kind of instruction they wanted.

Before students in any great number could be taught the

340

Appendix II

way to the Faculties, great efforts were necessary and several
years passed ; but it was after the Faculties obtained the
students they desired that the real problems presented
themselves for solution.

The great majority of the students in the Faculties of
Letters have been originally candidates for degrees, for
the licentiate, and for agregation, who entered with the
avowed intention of "preparing" for the licentiate and
for agregation. The Faculties have not been able to
escape the obligation of helping them in this " preparation."
But, twenty years ago, examinations were still conceived in
accordance with ancient formulae. The licentiate was an
attestation of advanced secondary study, a kind of " higher
baccalaureate " ; for the agregation in the classes of history
and geography (which became the real Ucsntia docendi), the
candidates were required to show that they " had a very good
knowledge of the subjects they would be charged to teach."
Henceforth there was a danger lest the teaching of the
Faculties, which must, like that of the Ecole normale
superieure, be preparatory for the examinations for the
licentiate and for agregation, should be compelled by the
force of circumstances to assume the same character. Note
that a certain emulation could not fail to arise between the
pupils of the icole normale and those of the Faculties in the
competitions for agregation. The agregation programmes
being what they were, this emulation seemed likely to have
the result of engaging the rival teachers and students more
and more in school work, not of a scientific kind, equally
devoid of dignity and real utility.

The danger was very serious. It was perceived from
the first by those clear-sighted promoters of the reform of
the Faculties, MM. A. Dumont, L. Liard, E. Lavisse. M.
Lavisse wrote in 1884: "To maintain that the Faculties
have for their chief object the preparation for examinations
is to substitute drill for scientific culture : this is the serious
grievance which able men have against the partisans of

341

Appendix II

innovation. . . . The partisans of innovation reply that they
have seen the drawbacks of the new departure from the
beginning, but that they are convinced that a modification
of the examination-system will follow the reform of higher
education ; that a reconciliation will be found between
scientific work and the preparation for examinations; and
that thus the only grievance their opponents have against
them will fall to the ground." It is only doing justice to
the foremost champion of reform to acknowledge that he
was never tired of insisting on the weak point; and in order
to convince oneself that the examination question has always
been considered the key-stone of the problem of the organisa-
tion of higher education in France, it is only necessary to
look through the speeches and the articles entitled " Educa-
tion and Examinations," " Examinations and Study," " Study
and Examinations," &c, which M. Lavisse has collected in
his three volumes published at intervals of five years from
1885 onwards: Questions tVenseignement national, Etudes et
etudiants, A propos de nos ecoles.

Thus the question of the reform of the examinations
connected with higher education (licentiate, agregation,
doctorate) has been placed on the order of the day. It was
there in 1884; it is still there in 1897. But, during the in-
terval, visible progress has been made in the direction which
we consider the right one, and now a solution seems near.

IV. The old examination-system required candidates for
degrees to show that they had received an excellent secondary
education. As it condemned those candidates, students
receiving higher instruction, to exercises of the same kind
as those of which they had already had their fill in the
lycees, it was a simple matter to attack it. It was defended
feebly, and has been demolished.

But how was it to be replaced ? The problem was very
complex. Is it any wonder that it was not solved at a
stroke 1

First of all, it was important to come to an agreement on
342

Appendix II

this preliminary question : What are the capacities and what
is the knowledge students should be required to give proof
of possessing 1 General knowledge 1 Technical knowledge
and the capacity of doing original research (as at the Ecole
des chartes and the Ecole des hautes etudes) 1 Pedagogic
capacity? It came gradually to be recognised that, con-
sidering the great extent and variety of the class from
which the students are drawn, it is necessary to draw
distinctions.

From candidates for the licentiate it is enough to require
that they should give proof of good general culture, per-
mitting them at the same time, if they wish, to show that
they have a taste for, and some experience in, original
research.

From the candidates for aggregation (licenlia doceuoli) who
have already obtained the licentiate, there will be required
(i) formal proof that they know, by experience, what it is
to study an historical problem, and that they have the
technical knowledge necessary for such studies; (2) proof
of pedagogic capacity, which is a professional necessity for
this class.

The students who are not candidates for anything, neither
for the licentiate nor for agregation, and who are simply
seeking to obtain scientific initiation — the old programmes
did not contemplate the existence of such a class of students
— will merely be required to prove that they have profited
by the tuition and the advice they have received.

This settled, a great stride has been made. For programmes,
as we know, regulate study. By virtue of the authority of
the programmes historical studies in the Faculties will now
have the threefold character which it is desirable that they
should have. General culture will not cease to be held in
honour. Technical exercises in criticism and research will
have their legitimate place. Lastly, pedagogy (theoretical
and practical) will not be neglected.

The difficulties begin when it is attempted to determine

343

Appendix II

the tests which, in each department, are the "best, that
is, the most conclusive. On this subject opinions differ.
Though no one now contests the principles, the modes of
application which have hitherto been tried or suggested do
not meet with unanimous approval. The organisation of
the licentiate has been revised three times; the statute
relating to the agregation in history has been reformed or
amended five times. And this is not the end. New sim-
plifications are imperative. But what is the importance of
this instability — of which, however, complaints begin to be
heard l — if it is established, as we believe it is, that progress
towards a better state of things has been continuous through
all these changes, without any notable retrogression 1

There is no need to explain here in detail the different
transitory systems which have been put into practice. We
have had occasion to criticise them elsewhere.2 Now that
most of what we objected to has been abolished, what is
the use of reviving old controversies 1 We shall not even
mention the points in which the present system seems to
us to be still capable of improvement, for there is reason to
hope that it will soon be modified, and in a very satisfactory
manner. Let it suffice to say that the Faculties now confer
a new diploma, the Diplome d'etudes superieures, which all
the students have a right to seek, but which the candidates
for agregation, are obliged to obtain. This diploma of higher
studies, analogous to that of the ifccole des hautes etudes,
the brevet of the Ecole des chartes, and the doctorate in
philosophy at the German universities, is given to those
students of history who, qualified by a certain academical
standing, have passed an examination in which the principal
tests are, besides questions on the ''sciences" auxiliary to
historical research, the composition and the defence of an

1 Revue historique, lxiii. (1897), p. 96.

3 See the Revue Internationale d'enseignernent, Feb. 1S93 > the Revue
universitaire, June 1892, Oct. and Nov. 1894, July 1895 > aQd the
Political Science Quarterly, Sept. 1894.

344

Appendix II

original monograph. Every one now recognises that "the
examination for the diploma of studies will yield excellent
fruit, if the vigilance and conscientiousness of examiners
maintain it at its proper value." l

V. To sum up, the attractions of preparation for degrees
have brought the Faculties a host of students. But, under
the old system of examinations for the licentiate and for
aggregation, preparation for degrees was a task which did not
harmonise very well with the work which the Faculties
deemed suitable for themselves, useful to their pupils,
and advantageous to science. The examination-system has
therefore been perseveringly reformed, not without difficulty,
into conformity with a certain ideal of what the higher
teaching of history ought to be. The result is that the
Faculties have taken rank among the institutions which
contribute to the positive progress of the historical sciences.
An enumeration of the works which have appeared under
their auspices during the last few years would, if necessary,
bear witness to the fact.

' This evolution has already produced satisfactory results,
and will produce more if it goes on as well as it has begun.
To begin with, the transformation of historical instruction in
the Faculties has brought about a corresponding transforma-
tion at the Ecole normale superieure. The Ecole normale
has also, for two years, been awarding a "Dipldme aV etudes " ;
original researches, pedagogic exercises, and general culture
are encouraged there in the same degree as by the new
Faculties. It now differs from the Faculties only in being
a close institution, recruited under certain precautions;
practically it is a Faculty like the others, but with a small
number of select students. Secondly, the Ecole des
hautes etudes and the Ecole des chartes, both of which
will be installed at the end of 1819 7, in the renovated

1 Revue, historique, I.e. p. 98. I have developed elsewhere what I
have here contented myself with stating. See the Revue Internationale
de Venseignement, Nov. 1897. — [C. V. L.]

345 '

Appendix II

Sorbonne, have still their justification for existence ; for
many specialists are represented at the Ecole des hautes
etudes which are not, and doubtless never will be, repre-
sented in the Faculties; and, in the case of the studies
bearing on medieval history, the body of converging in-
struction given at the Ecole des chartes will always be
incomparable. But the old antagonism between the Ecole
des hautes etudes and the Ecole des chartes on the one
hand, and the Faculties on the other, has disappeared. All
these institutions, lately so dissimilar, will henceforth co-
operate for the purpose of carrying on a common work in
a common spirit. Each of these retains its name, its auto-
nomy, and its traditions ; but together they form a whole :
the historical section of an ideal University of Paris, much
vaster than the one which was sanctioned by the law in
1896. Of this " greater " University, the Ecole des chartes,
the £cole des hautes etudes, the Ecole normale sup^rieure,
and the whole body of historical instruction given by the
Faculty of Letters, are now practically so many independent
" instituts."

346

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES

Abd-el-Kader, 282
Airao, 158

Alexander the Great, 272
Alphonse of Poitiers, 227
Altamira, R., 328
Anselme, Pere, 303
Ariovistus, 222
Aristophanes, 171
Aristotle, 44
Athenseus, 300

Bacon, Francis, 291

Bancroft, H. H., 19, 20, 22, 31

Barthelemy, Abb6, 301

Bast, F. J., 78

Bedier, J., 85, 112

Bernheim, E., 6, 7, IO, 13, 38,

56, 74, 91, 99, ico, 156, 182,

198, 237, 297
Blanchere, R. de la, 319
Blass, F., 74, 78, 79, 89, 92
Bodin, Jean, 44
Boeckh, A., 107, 152
Bohmer, J. F., 106
Bollandists, Society of, 35
Bonaventura, St., 88, 90
Bouche-Leclercq, A., 158
Boucherie, A., 113
Bourdeau, L., 275
Boutaric, E., 227
Boyce, W. B., I
Brequigny, L. G. 0. F. de, 106
Broglie, E. de, 29

Brugiere de Barante, A. G. P.,

301
Brunetiere, F., 113
Buchez, P. J. B., I
Buhler, G., 56

Cesar, Julius, 44, 194, 197, 218,

220, 222, 245
Cagnat, R., 57
Cantu, C, 311

Carlyle, Thomas, 132, 230, 303
Chanipollion, F., 48
Charles IX. of France, 168, 186
Cbasles, M., 88

Chateaubriand, F. A. de, 72, 301
Chemosh, the god, 212
Cherot, H., 7
Chevalier, U., 5, 7
Chladenius, J. M., 6
Cicero, 44, 108
Cleopatra, 88, 248
Clovis, 158, 220, 223, 301
Cobet, C. C, 78
Coulanges, Fustel de, 1, 9, 10, 64,

140, 144, 148, 149, 150, 158,

170, 215, 216, 230
Cournot, A. A., 246, 249
Cousin, V., 286, 287
Curtius, G., 230, 314

Daniel, Pere, 303
Daremberg, C. V., 308
Darius Hystaspes, 15 1

347

Index of Proper Names

Daunou, P. C. F., 5, 6, 43,

54,55
Delisle, L., 23, 97
Deloche, J. E. M., 148
Demosthenes, 171
Dezobry, C. L., 302
Droysen, J. G., 3, 5, 7, 10, 1

156, 158, 286, 314
Du Cange, C. du F., 105, 136,
Dumont, A., 341
Duruy, V., 327, 338, 339

Ebers, G., 301

Edward VI. of England, 249

Egger, E., 108

Eginhard, 94

Ephorus, 298

Eusebius, 298

Feillet, A., 162
Feugere, L., 105, 136
Fisher, H. A. L., 125
Flaubert, G., 5, 32, 304, 319
Flint, R., 2, 6, 8, 285
France, A., 319
Fredegonda, 197
Freeman, E. A., 5, 7, 10, 46
Froissart, Jean, 19
Froude, J. A., 125, 126

Geiger, W., 56
Gellius, Aulu.8,.300
Georgisch, P., 106
Giannone, Pietro, 104
Gibbon, E., 44
Gilbert, Gustav, 309
Giry, A., 57
Glasson, E., 149
Goethe, J. W. von, 19, 319
Grow, J., 75
Graux, C, 123
Gregory of Corinth, 78
Gregory of Tours, 144, 146,
180, 198, 256

47,

06,
148

158,

Grober, G., 57, 310
Grote, G., 183, 310
Grotius, Hugo, 44
Guicciardini, Francesco, 44
Guiraud, P., 230

Hagen, H., 78

Hardouin, Pere, 99

Harnack, A. , 309

Havet, Julien, 12, 56, 97, 123,

128
Havet, Louis, 12
Haureau, B., 84, in, 1 18, 123
Hegel, G. W. F., 286
Henry VIII. of England, 249
Henry II. of France, 292
Henry, V., 289
Herodotus, 44, 171, 179, 197
Horace, 99
Hoveden, John, 88
Hroswitha, 99
Hugo, Victor, 88, 89
Hume, D., 44

Jaffe, P., 106

Jameson, J. F., 136

Jerome, St., 112

Jesus Christ, 188

Joan of Arc, 188

John, King of England, 187

Jullian, C, 297

Krumbacher, K., 309
Kuhn, E., 56

Lacombe, T., 2, 233, 241, 277, 288
Lamprecht, K., 230, 247, 284, 290,

314
Langlois, Ch. V., 19, 38, ill, 135,

192, 345
Lasch, B,, 68
Laurent, F., 285
Lavisse, E., 134, 328, 333, 337,

34i, 342

348

Index of Proper Names

Lavoisier, A. L., 302

Leibnitz, G. W., 121, 122

Lee, Sidney, 308

Le Moyne, Pere, 7

Lenglet de Fresnoy, N., 6

Leonardo da Vinci, 88, 89

Liard, L., 335, 341

Lindner, T., 81

Lindsay, W. M., 78, 79, 84

Livy, 44, 178^ 180, 233, 297,

298
Locke, John, 44
Loebell, J. W., 180
Lorenz, O., 10
Loudun, the nuns of, 208
Louis VIII. of France, 187
Louis of Granada, 88
Luard, H. R., 98
Luther, Martin, 203 .

Mably, G. B. de, 43, 44

Macaulay, Lord, 303

Macchiavelli, N., 44

Madvig, J. N., 78

Mariani, L., 4

Marquardt, J., 309

Marselli, N., 2

Mary Magdalene, St. , 88

Mary, Queen, 249

Matthew of Paris, 98

Matthew of Westminster, 97

Mayr, J. von, 274

Me'rime'e, P., 301

Mesha Inscription, the, 212

Meusel, H., 148

Meyer, E., 158

Meyer, P., 29

M^zeray, F. E. de, 298

Michelet, J., 230, 271, 286, 287,

301, 303, 327, 336
Moller, W., 309
Mommsen, T., 108, 118, 230, 286,

309, 3H
Monod, G., 100, 144, 297, 302

Montesquieu, C. de S., 44, 257,

284, 299
Montfaucon, Pere Bernard de, 29
Montgomery, Gabriel de, 292
Mortet, Ch. and V., 1 1
Mourin, E., 302
Miiller, I. von, 56, 74, 310
Mylaeus, 6

Napoleon I., 26, 282
Newton, Isaac, 302
Niebuhr, B. G., 158, 182
Nietzsche, F., 319
Nitzsch, C. W., 180

Oncken, W., 311
Orosius, 298
Ossian, 91
Otto I., 175

Paris, G., 309
Patrizzi, Francesco, 6
Pattison, Mark, 1 15
Paul, H., 75, 310
Pauly, A., 308
Pausanias, 74
Peckham, John, 88
Peiresc, N. F. 0. de, 22
j Pflugk-Harttung, J. von, 10, 130
Philippi, A., 129
Piaget, A., 91
Pisistratus, 207
Plato, 153
Plutarch, 44, 297
Polybius, 44, 279, 297
Potthast, A., 106
Prou, M., 57

Ranke, L., 140, 286

Raynal, J., 44

Reinach, S., 75, 79

Renan, E., 9, 29, 30, 40, 105, 1 14,

119, 122, 132, 134, 183
Retz, Cardinal de, 44, 162, 169

349

Index of Pkoper Names

Rilliet, A., 162
Robertson, J. M., 115, 241
Robertson, W., 44
Rocholl, R., 285
Rousseau, J. J., 44
Rulhiere, C. C. de, 44

SaCxLIO, E., 30S

Saint-Simon, C. H. de, 251

Sallust, 44

Sanchoniathon, 91

Schiller, J. C. F. von, 162

Sehlosser, F. C, 31 1

Schcemann, G. F., 309

Seguier, J. F., 109

Seignobos, Ch., II, 66, 196, 257,

333. 334
Seneca, 78

Sforza, Ludovico, 282
Sickel, T. von, 56
Shnmel, G., 217
Smedt, Pere de, 10, 156, 207,

254
Spencer, Herbert, 287
Stephen, Leslie, 308
Stubbs, WM 10
Suetonius, 94
Suger, Abbot, 170
Suidas, 158
Sully, M., 169
Surville, Clotilde de, 91

Tacitus, 44, 141, 144, 171, 177,

194, 233, 256
Taine, H. A 140, 143, 247, 286

Tardif, A., 5, 7, 156

Taylor, J., 75

Thierry, Augustin, 98, 140, 230,

259, 265, 301, 302, 303
Thomas, A., J^
Thucydides, 19, 44, 158, 183, 197,

297
Tobler, A., 75
Tschudi, J. H., 162, 171
Turenne, H. de la T. d'A., 162

Vercingetorix, 88
Vergil, 84, 99
Vertot, R. A. de, 44
Villeraarque", H. de, 181
Vincent de Paul, St., 326
Voltaire, F. M. A. de, 44, 299
Vrain-Lucas, 88

Waitz, G., 1 10, 118
Wallace, A. R., 207
Waltzing, J, P., 108
Wattenbach, W., 73
Wauters, A. C, 106
Weber, G., 311
Wegele, F. X. von, 122, 297
Wendover, Roger de, 98
Wissowa, G., 308
Wittekind, 175
Wright, T., 84

Xenophon, 44

Zumpt, A. W., 108

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